The bank proxy season kicks off with the Morgan Stanley’s AGM tomorrow. CtW is urging Morgan Stanley shareholders to withhold from three Morgan Stanley directors, and last Friday CalSTRS announced it has come to a similar conclusion.

Coming up on April 15 is Washington Mutual’s annual meeting. At the end of March, CtW sent a letter to WaMu shareholders outlining our case for removing directors Mary Pugh and James Stever based on their failure to properly oversee risk management and their attempt to insulate executive bonuses from the consequences. So far, independent proxy advisors ISS and Glass Lewis have joined our call for the removal of Pugh and Stever – and we’ll update you as soon as we learn how some of the public pensions funds are voting.

These upcoming meetings will provide shareholders the opportunity to hold bank boards accountable for their failures to manage mortgage related risk that destroyed billions in shareholder value, destabilized global capital markets, and precipitated a credit crunch that has thrown the U.S. economy into recession.

Posted by Anna Mumford on April 7, 2008 8:32 AM