The chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission expressed reluctance to take additional action on dual-class stock structures and arbitration clauses in companies’ initial public offerings.

Jay Clayton, speaking at the Council of Institutional Investors’ spring conference in Washington, D.C. on March 12, said that his agency has limited resources, and that he was hesitant to commit to game-changing actions on topics of interest to the institutional investors in attendance.

One topic which has discussed frequently at the conference was dual-class capitalization structures, in which some classes of stock carry more voting weight than others. The issue has been more hotly debated by investors since the 2017 IPO of Snap, the maker of SnapChat, which sold shares of common stock that conferred no voting rights at all. SEC commissioner Robert Jackson, Jr. said in February that such structures were undemocratic, and called for listing standards addressing the use of perpetual dual-class stock that can be passed down to heirs without any diminishing of voting power. Clayton, however, was more circumspect when asked about dual-class shares at the CII event.

“I’m not putting this at the front of the agenda for something we should weigh in on,” Clayton said.

Clayton said that the “one share, one vote” model is not the only model of governance for successful public companies, although extreme examples like Snap were cause for concern.

“Where you draw the lines, and whether that’s something that should be done by the SEC or by the stock exchanges or some other authority – or by people with a great deal of capital to put to work in the markets – is a question worthy of debate,” Clayton said. “But from my own perspective, I’m not an absolutist on either end.”

Read the full story: SEC chair not eager to take action on unequal stock schemes, IPO arbitration

Published by Money Management Report/Pageant Media.