Resolved: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors undertake a review and institute any appropriate policy changes, such as amending the bylaws or other actions needed, to make it more practical to deny indemnification of directors when appropriate from the standpoint of the company and public policy. The review should take full account of the relationship between insurance coverage and indemnification, corporate litigation strategy, retaining appropriate board discretion and the ability of the company to attract new board members. Such policies and amendments should be made effective prospectively only, so that they apply to claims, actions, suits or proceedings for which the underlying activities occur and the claims are asserted subsequent to both the enactment of the policy changes and the renewal of a director’s board membership.
Supporting Statement
The current bylaws provide for indemnification of directors “to the fullest extent permissible under the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware.” As a practical matter, maximizing such indemnity eliminates personal exposure of directors, potentially even for some improper, illegal or criminal behaviors that violated their fiduciary duties. The proponent’s intention is to incentivize directors to exercise maximum fiduciary oversight and to avoid inappropriate indemnification.
“Indemnification of Directors and Officers: A Different Side to the Problem of Corporate Corruption,” published in Wall Street Lawyer, June 1, 2004 and reprinted on the Internet by the law firm of Andrews Kurth, LLP, notes that “Corporations and insurance carriers are finding out that their indemnification obligations are not easily avoided…Despite the arguments favoring insurers and corporations, the courts have looked to the documents governing their obligations and generally have found the insurance policies, bylaws, and indemnification agreements to be too broad, too vague, or too restrictive to relieve the indemnitors.”
The article noted that indemnification agreements maximize indemnification even in some circumstances where an individual may not be considered deserving of such indemnification. Some of the defects in current indemnity arrangements include failing to include provisions that provide practical means for denying indemnification in the context where an individual enters a settlement and does not admit to wrongdoing. Under most bylaws and agreements, a company has little choice but to provide indemnification in that setting. The SEC has entered some settlements that prevent settling defendants from seeking indemnification, but the SEC’s reach does not include many instances in which Citigroup directors may receive indemnification. The SEC has, in some instances, concluded that corporations providing indemnification to directors and officers may be acting contrary to public policy, and has assessed fines against at least one company for doing so.
The list of Citigroup’s regulatory actions, scandals and controversies over the past decade is too lengthy to enumerate within the word limitation of this resolution. We urge fellow investors to support this proposal, to encourage our company to develop practical reforms and refinements to its indemnification policies, so that our directors have appropriate incentives for effective oversight, and are not being subsidized by the shareholders in circumstances that defy common sense.