On April 14, 2015, Washington Legal Foundation issued the following statement of victory regarding the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s decision to overturn a lower court decision in Trinity Wall Street v. Wal-Mart, that would have required publicly traded companies to include frivolous and inappropriate shareholder proposals in proxy statements at the company’s expense—and, therefore, at the expense of every other shareholder. In a concise, two-page order, the appeals court vacated the district court’s order, concluding that “Wal-Mart may exclude Trinity’s Proposal from its 2015 proxy materials.” WLF filed a brief in the case arguing that the proposal was not only excludable under the SEC’s “ordinary business” exception, because it related to Wal-Mart’s ordinary business matters, but the proposal was so vague that neither the company nor its shareholders would be able to determine with any reasonable certainty what actions the proposal would require. The appeals court will issue a more detailed opinion explaining its decision in the coming weeks.
