The ability of shareholders to attend corporate annual meetings, ask questions, and express their views is considered by many to be critical to effective corporate governance. For example, a post in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance noted that: “While it is not explicitly a legal right, shareholders expect to be able to ask questions at shareholder meetings, and companies have long included time for questions from shareholders at their annual meetings.” However, the rise of virtual meetings may have made it too easy for corporations to ignore shareholder questions. Below I provide three recent examples that raise such concerns, though it is certainly possible that there are legitimate explanations for the problems I encountered in each case.
CVS
As discussed in more detail previously (here), on May 15 I attended the CVS shareholder meeting and submitted the following two questions.
1. “CVS is a platinum partner of the Human Rights Campaign and has scored 100% on the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, even though the Human Rights Campaign has been accused of pushing transgenderism on children and undermining women’s sports and spaces. In a letter submitted to the SEC, CVS claimed that its status as a Platinum Partner of HRC, as well as the policies that earned CVS a 100% score on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, are ‘not controversial’ but rather ‘mainstream and customary.’ Does CVS stand by this characterization of its relationship with HRC?”
2. “CVS has been rated ‘High Risk’ on the 1792 Exchange’s Corporate Bias Ratings, in part because ‘CVS embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues.’ Meanwhile, CVS has underperformed the S&P 500 by over 75% over the past 3 years. Has CVS’s board discussed the aforementioned ratings?”
Neither question was addressed at the meeting, but CVS did say it would respond to any unanswered questions later. However, I have been unable to track down any such responses, and when I asked ChatGPT to find them I was told: “as of today (June 8, 2025), the Investor Relations website (including Events & Presentations, FAQs, and Governance sections) does not include any such post‑meeting Q&A content.”
Mondelez
On May 21, I planned to attend the Mondelez shareholder meeting and ask the following question:
“The Oreo brand has been criticized for pushing transgenderism on children, including via its association with PFLAG and the Human Rights Campaign. Given that fiduciary duty requires fully informed decision-making, shareholders may assume Mondelez accordingly supports the proposition that children can be born in the wrong body. Is that correct?”
However, upon attempting to attend the meeting my access was repeatedly blocked by a notification that read: “Please enter a valid e-mail address.” Furthermore, I received no reply when I tried repeatedly to follow up with Mondelez to get an answer to my question. Meanwhile, the Mondelez proxy statement says: “We have designed the format of the Annual Meeting so that shareholders have the same rights and opportunities as they would have at a physical meeting for meaningful engagement with the Company.”
McDonald’s
On May 28, I planned to attend the McDonald’s shareholder meeting and ask the following question:
“McDonald’s scored 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Many people have expressed concern about what that score implies about McDonald’s position on transgenderism. Accordingly, fiduciary duty arguably requires that McDonald’s explain where it stands on that issue. So, my question is: Does McDonald’s believe a child can be born in the wrong body?”
However, upon attempting to access the meeting I discovered that McDonald’s apparently has a pre-registration requirement for attending its annual meeting. It was the first time I’ve encountered such a requirement when trying to access a meeting. Furthermore, I received no reply when I tried repeatedly to follow up with McDonald’s to get an answer to my question. Meanwhile, McDonald’s says in its 2025 proxy statement: “ We understand the importance of engaging with our shareholders and are committed to regularly discussing their perspectives on significant issues.”
Conclusion
I am not claiming any of these companies necessarily did anything illegal (though misleading shareholders about engagement opportunities might be illegal), and it is certainly possible that at least some of the problems I experienced were a function of user error on my part. Having said that, I can confidently report that many shareholders I know have concluded that submitting questions at virtual shareholder meetings is a waste of time because of how routinely they are ignored. And even when they are addressed, the phrasing of the question is often so significantly watered down that it becomes too easy for executives to answer them without actually addressing the substance of the original question. This suggests, at the very least, that companies may be using virtual meetings to undermine a critical component of corporate governance.
