ISS Response to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Guidelines for Proxy Advisory Firms

As a firm committed to helping institutional investors exercise their fiduciary duties, ISS could not disagree more with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s assertions that the corporate governance system is broken.  We take exception with the Chamber’s misinformed characterization of the proxy advisory industry and with their disrespect for the financial institutions that are our clients and, ironically, some of the Chamber’s own members.

For more than a quarter of a century, ISS has set the standard for professionalism, independence and transparency in the proxy advisory industry.  We are accountable to our clients who place their confidence in our service, to the companies we analyze and to the regulators that set the real guidelines for fiduciary responsibility.  The Chamber should take its own advice by grounding its “Principles” in actual facts rather than its own self-serving interests.