NYC Pension Asks Exxon to Alter ‘Self-Interested’ Voting Program

The New York City Comptroller’s Office asked ExxonMobil Corp. to update its new retail shareholder voting program so individual investors have options other than “robo-voting in line with board recommendations.”

More than 100,000 shareholders representing more than 3% of the company’s outstanding shares have enrolled in the retail voting program as of March 1, according to Exxon’s proxy statementreleased Wednesday. The shareholder proposal, which also appeared in the filing, calls for multiple independent voting options to prevent the program from excessively benefiting the company’s positions.

Potential changes include options to vote against management recommendations across-the-board or some sort of ...