The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved further shareholder motions calling for a review of possible abuses in the company. The applications originally blocked by Apple require detailed information on the deletion of apps from the Chinese App Store, as well as a comprehensive report on allegations of forced labor in the company’s supply chain, such as the one Financial Times reported.
Previously, it had already emerged that another Apple blockade had failed: The required investigation into a possible cover-up of internal grievances through confidentiality clauses in Apple employee contracts is now considered permissible.
Vote at the general meeting
After reports of forced labor in Apple’s supply chain, one of the shareholder motions asked for detailed information on how the group protects workers from whether suppliers have already been identified with violations and whether steps have been taken against them. Apple’s attempted blockade was rejected by the SEC on the grounds that the “essential goals of the entry seem to have not been implemented”.
The motions can thus be submitted to Apple’s upcoming general meeting for voting. The group’s “Shareholder Meeting” usually takes place in February; an exact date for 2022 has not yet been announced.
Pay more attention to problems
Apple is faced with a total of six shareholder motions and has tried to block all of them, explains the Financial Times. It is the highest number of such applications since 2017. Apple argued to the stock exchange regulator that the required things are already being met “in essential parts”. In addition to the three approved applications, another was rejected; a decision on the other two applications is still pending.
Such shareholder motions usually do not find a majority in the vote among Apple’s shareholders, but the approval provides additional publicity – this seems to have already led to changes at the company in the past, including Apple’s firmly established commitment to human rights and freedom of expression.
(lbe)