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Status
Annual
meeting held May 28, 2003
% voting
YES: 4.1%
Shareholder
resolutions face a variety of obstacles. For this reason, it is
considered significant if a resolution garners at least 5% of the
vote. Votes over 10% indicate exceptional shareholder support for
an issue.
Filers
of "social-issue" resolutions generally don't expect their
resolution
to receive a majority vote and be adopted by management. Rather,
filers use these resolutions to get management's attention, and
to raise the issue with other shareholders. They hope to achieve
a vote sufficient to allow them to return the next year.
According
to SEC rules, a resolution must receive 3% of the vote the first
year it is filed, 6% in year two and 10% thereafter in order to
be included on the proxy the following year.
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Exxon-Mobil
Competitive
Board Elections
WHEREAS:
Shareholders
have the right to elect directors, yet at each years annual meeting,
shareholders are presented a slate of nominees with the same number of
candidates as the number of seats to be filled. While shareholders have
the legal right to communicate with all the Companys shareholders
and urge them to write in one or more candidates, that procedure is so
expensive that it is very rarely feasible. As a result, as a practical
matter shareholders do not have the opportunity to evaluate and choose
between competing candidates.
Our resolution
would not give any shareholder or shareholder group a new right to cause
their candidate to appear on the slate. Rather, it would merely require
the Companys Board, through its own nominating committee (the Board
Affairs Committee), to find additional candidates that it deems qualified
for the position.
We in the
United States believe that competition increases quality and that election
generally implies a choice between competing candidates. We believe that
following these principles in board elections would well serve the Company
and its shareholders.
RESOLVED:
Shareholders request that Exxon Mobils next election of directors
include a slate of nominees that is larger than the number of available
Board seats by at least 50%.
SUPPORTING
STATEMENT:
We believe
that in this time when investor confidence in equity markets has been
severely shaken, a broad examination of our institutions governance
is in order. Our proposal is a moderate step in that direction.
Please vote
FOR this proposal.
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