2007-2008 Policy Outreach

As part of its uniquely open and transparent policy formulation process, ISS Governance Services reaches out to market participants through a policy survey of institutional clients, roundtables with industry constituents, and an open comment period that solicits market feedback on selected key issues from markets around the world.

Policy survey

Our 2007-2008 client policy feedback survey was completed by 285 institutions in June and July of 2007, providing insight on how institutional investors understand governance issues in markets worldwide.

• Download the summary of survey findings

Policy Review and Comment Period

As part of its transparent and proactive approach to formulating its proxy voting policies, ISS Governance Services engages in extensive outreach activities in an effort to collect feedback from multiple constituencies and markets. As investors and issuers engage more actively on governance issues, it's vital to understand the perspectives of a broad range of market participants.

ISS Governance Services' Global Policy Board solicited comments from a broad range of market participants on ten important corporate governance issues, which represented some of the policy changes under consideration for 2008. We believe that additional market feedback on these topics benefits our policy formulation process.

Audit

• Poor Accounting Practices (U.S.)

• Cumulative Voting (U.S.)
• Director Attendance (Japan)
• Independent Chair (U.S.)

• Non-Employee Director Limit on Equity Plan Participation (Canada)
• Stock Options for Non-Executive Directors (Belgium and the Netherlands)
• Poor Pay Practices (U.S.)
• Stock Option Overhang in ISS Governance Services' Binomial Option Pricing ("SVT") Model (U.S.)
• Say on Pay - Principles for Evaluating Remuneration (U.S. and International)

• Product Safety (U.S.)