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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Shareholder proposals generally go smoothly at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. But Warren Buffett and the company now face a lawsuit over the way a news anchor was treated last year.
Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center returned this year with another proposal on a different topic, even after he was interrupted mid-presentation last year and arrested for trespassing. The charges were later dropped, but Flaherty decided to pursue legal action because of the way he was treated to defend any shareholder who wanted to make a proposal. He said he has never had any problems in the dozens of meetings he has attended since 2005, including Berkshire’s 2022 meeting.
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“I have never been interrupted during a presentation to shareholders. I have never had my microphone cut and I have never been kicked out of a meeting room. And I’ve certainly never been arrested,” Flaherty said. “These things were unprecedented for me. »
The problem last year was Flaherty questioning the character of one of Buffett’s best friends and former Berkshire board member, Bill Gates. Flaherty suggested that Buffett’s close association with Gates could harm Berkshire’s reputation due to reports that Gates was associated with Jeffrey Epstein before his arrest on sex trafficking charges. So he proposed that Berkshire give Buffett’s chairman title to someone else while leaving him as CEO.
Buffett has donated billions of dollars to the Gates Foundation over the years and plans to entrust most of his fortune to it to distribute.
Berkshire did not immediately respond to the federal complaint filed Friday, and it was not mentioned during Saturday’s meeting. Berkshire officials didn’t even address any of the proposals during the meeting; rather, they relied on their statements of opposition filed in the official proxy for the meeting.
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Buffett remained silent during the business meeting after spending all day Saturday answering questions from shareholders during the main part of the shareholder meeting. He let his eventual successor, Vice President Greg Abel, take the lead. He only reminded the presenters of the six proposals so that their comments remained linked to the proposals.
Flaherty’s proposal was one of six rejected at this year’s Berkshire meeting. The board all opposed it, and Buffett still controls about a third of the votes, so anything he opposes is almost certain to fail. None of the proposals received more than 85,000 votes. Flaherty’s proposal received only 6,150 votes, while she received 443,544 votes against.
Some of the other proposals rejected Saturday included those requiring Berkshire to create reports on climate change risks and diversity and inclusion efforts within the massive conglomerate. Another proposal would have required Berkshire to create a board committee focused on rail safety.
The safety chief of the SMART-TD rail union that represents drivers and other rail workers, Jared Cassity, said that if BNSF wants to argue that safety is the railroad’s top priority, the board of directors of Berkshire should focus on this and review personnel and operational practices to help. prevent derailments like the disastrous one Norfolk Southern experienced last year in East Palestine, Ohio.
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“Rail safety requires effective board oversight,” Cassity said.
Berkshire argued that BNSF is already focused on improving safety and does not need increased oversight.
As for other proposals, Berkshire officials argued that such reporting would be cumbersome because of the decentralized way the company is run and unnecessary. Additionally, some of its subsidiaries, such as its massive utilities unit, already report on greenhouse gas emissions, Berkshire said.
This year, Flaherty was allowed to argue that Berkshire should produce a report on the risks of doing business in China, before the proposal was summarily rejected.
“China presents unique risks to Berkshire Hathaway,” Flaherty said, arguing that the company’s disclosure about subsidiaries like Fruit of the Loom that have factories in China is insufficient.
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