Paul Atkins' SEC Rejects Gary Gensler's Plan to Encourage Shareholder Proposals

The Corporation is not a New England Town Meeting Even Though Gensler Wanted to Treat it Like One

In a series of notices between 2022 and 2023, the then Democrat majority at the SEC pushed through on party line 3-2 party votes multiple rulemaking proposals that the new Republican majority SEC yesterday announced it was withdrawing. In one fell swoop, new Chairman Paul Atkins thus gutted what remained of former Chairman Gary Gensler’s regulatory agenda.

The impacted proposals range across a wide swath of securities law, including: broker-dealer conflicts of interest arising from the use of predictive data analytics, investment adviser duties re client funds, cybersecurity for securities firms, enhanced investment adviser and investment company disclosures re ESG issues, and on and on into the deep weeds. (Interestingly, many of the withdrawn rulemaking proposals had been targeted by the House Committee on Financial Service’s Republican members in a March 31, 2025 letter to acting SEC Chairman Mark Uyeda,urging the SEC to withdraw 14 pending proposed and recently adopted rules.)

As a corporate governance person, the withdraw of Gensler’s proposal to modify Rule 14a-8—the shareholder proposal rule—interests me the most.