WASHINGTON – A group of Senate Republicans has condemned Nasdaq’s pressure for greater diversity on corporate boards, saying it interferes with board members’ obligation to govern in the interests of shareholders and could harm financial performance.
In a letter Friday, all 12 Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to reject Nasdaq’s proposal to ask thousands of listed companies to include women, racial minorities and LGBT people on their boards. administration.
“We congratulate individual companies for the proactive efforts they have already made in recruiting, promoting and retaining various talents,” wrote the senators, led by Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. “However, it is not Nasdaq’s role … to act as an arbiter of social policy or to impose a one-size-fits-all prescriptive solution on markets and investors.
The Nasdaq proposal, filed with the SEC in December, would require listed companies to have at least one woman on their boards, in addition to a director who is a racial minority or one who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. or queer. Companies that do not meet the standard will be asked to justify their decision to remain listed on the Nasdaq.
Nasdaq said in a statement on Friday that its proposal “is a market-based solution that should simplify and standardize disclosure requirements to avoid the kind of over-regulation that critics fear.”