The Verizon board would issue a report by...
The Verizon board would issue a report by October detailing how the company “is responding to regulatory, competitive, legislative and public pressure to ensure that its network management policies and practices” promote net neutrality and an open Internet, under a…
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shareholder proposal that’s up for a vote at the telco’s annual meeting May 1 in Phoenix. The board is urging that it be voted down. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, a think tank that owns just under 6,000 Verizon shares, is sponsoring the proposal, said the telco’s SEC proxy statement filed March 17 (http://bit.ly/1h2dEvG). “We are not seeking a report on legal compliance or the details of network management,” the proposal said. “Rather, we seek to ensure that shareholders have sufficient information to evaluate how Verizon manages this significant policy challenge,” including how the company “takes into account that network management decisions could potentially affect future regulatory developments,” it said. Verizon as a company has not been as transparent with the public as it should about its open Internet policies, the proposal said. Urging shareholders to vote the proposal down, the Verizon board “strongly disagrees” with the contention the company “has not provided its customers with evidence” of a commitment to open Internet policies, the proxy said. “As a leader in developing an open architecture for accessing and using the Internet, Verizon’s position on all aspects of the ‘network neutrality’ debate has been consistently and publicly conveyed in mainstream and industry-related media, through legislative and agency fact-finding processes and in applicable agency and court filings.” Verizon recently published on its website a statement of the company’s “commitment to broadband customers to support the Open Internet and to provide them with Internet access and use of the lawful online content, applications and services of their choice, regardless of their source.” Verizon in December sought but failed to gain SEC approval to strike the investor proposal from the annual meeting’s agenda on the grounds that the company, under Security Exchange Act rule 14a-8(i)(10), already has “substantially implemented” what the shareholder proposal is asking for in a net neutrality report by the board. The Nathan Cummings Foundation objected. In February, the SEC denied Verizon’s request to strike the proposal from the agenda. “It does not appear that Verizon’s public disclosures compare favorably with the guidelines of the proposal,” Norman von Holtzendorff, attorney-adviser in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, told Verizon in a Feb. 7 letter.