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 In exchange for the withdrawal of a shareholder proposal the bank
agreed to develop some type of public event on the criteria boards
should use in setting up the roles of chairman and chief executive
officer, shareholder activists said on Thursday.
In addition, the bank will provide more details of its risk
mitigation efforts, both sides said, leading to the withdrawal of a
related proposal.
"Engagement with shareholders is important and facilitates a better
understanding of governance practices and communications that
promote the best interests of the company and its shareholders," Lee
Raymond, JPMorgan's lead independent director, said in a statement.
The filers of both resolutions are affiliated with the Interfaith
Center on Corporate Responsibility in New York. Its vice chairman,
Seamus Finn, said the bank was likely looking to resolve lingering
questions over matters such as its $6 billion "London Whale" trading
losses and scrutiny of its mortgage practices.
"I think they decided this may be a way to get the monkey off their
back in terms of restoring the public trust," Finn said in a
telephone interview.
Jamie Dimon holds both the chairman and CEO titles at the bank. But
the dual roles had become a flashpoint and at JPMorgan's last two
annual meetings Dimon faced resolutions that would have stripped him
of the chairman title.
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This year activists had sought only to phase in an independent
chairman requirement when the bank seeks its next CEO eventually.
Still the proposal could have led to another personalized debate
over Dimon's management.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston;
editing by Eric Walsh and Lisa Shumaker)
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