Contact: John Harrington – 707.252.6166
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 3, 2006
Napa, California
Bank of America Tells Shareholders: Privacy Protection is None of Their Business
Harrington Investments, Inc. (HII), a Napa, California based socially responsible investment advisor, has responded to Bank of America's attempt to gain approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to keep a shareholder resolution on privacy off the 2006 shareholder ballot.
Numerous security breaches at Bank of America since December 2004 prompted HII to file a shareholder proposal requesting a report on the policies and procedures supposedly meant to keep such breaches from re-occurring. Bank of America responded by asking the SEC to allow the company to omit the proposal from its 2006 proxy materials. The company does not believe that shareholders are entitled to this information. Instead, Bank of America argued that the owners of the company should be satisfied with the information provided to the general public in the company's literature and on the company's web site.
HII disagrees with the company and appealed to the SEC to allow the shareholders to vote on the proposal, stating that the policies and procedures outlined by Bank of America were not only insufficient to stop the security breaches, but provided insufficient information for the owners of the company to determine the legal and financial liabilities involved in the company's operations.
"Obviously, Bank of America's management does not want to disclose to its shareholders management's incompetence in safeguarding customer confidential financial information," said John Harrington, president and CEO of HII and sponsor of the shareholder resolution. "The Bank was successful last year in convincing the SEC to allow the company to exclude from the 2005 proxy a proposal that requested the company to report on procedures for safeguarding its electronic transmission of customer data to its subsidiary in India."
Concerns for the safety of confidential data have caused HII to file shareholder proposals at Bank of America for the last three years. Harrington personally holds 200 shares of Bank of America stock, while HII holds 61,406 shares for managed client accounts.
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