Royal Bank of Canada | Public disclosure of non-confidential information, country-by-country reporting, pay ratios and tax havens at Royal Bank of Canada

Status
Filed
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
8
Resolution details
Company ticker
RY:CN
Lead filer
Mouvement d'éducation et de défense des actionnaires (MÉDAC)
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Governance
ESG sub-theme
  • Remuneration or pay
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Financials
Company HQ country
Canada
Resolved clause
Public disclosure of non-confidential information, country-by-country reporting, pay ratios and tax havens It is proposed that the Bank annually disclose to the public the non-confidential information in its country-by-country reporting for the purposes of preparing meaningful and detailed pay ratio calculations, specifically broken down by jurisdictions, and contributing to the fight against tax havens, specifically in terms of transparency.
Supporting statement
For many years, the Bank has received from MÉDAC — and now from Vancity — several shareholder proposals requesting the calculation and disclosure of pay ratios. Despite the substantial number of votes cast in support of these proposals (XX% in 2023), the Bank still does not disclose its global pay ratio, something that has been mandatory for some time now in the United States and that several companies are already doing here in Canada. Of course, several arguments have been put forward against the publication of such a ratio. Also, even though pay ratios should be published for all employees pursuant to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, (1) the public disclosure of non-confidential information of the “country-by-country reporting”— Action 13 (2) of the OECD/G20’s Inclusive Framework (3) on Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (4) (BEPS), an international initiative to which the government has subscribed — would allow for a meaningful calculation of pay ratios that would help better interpret the global pay ratios by enriching the description of the underlying context. Furthermore, disclosing such non-confidential data to the public at large — as is incidentally the case in several other countries, including in Europe — would be an exercise in transparency, goodwill and good faith that would directly support the fight against tax avoidance, tax evasion, “tax havens” and other “lenient legislation.” Yet according to the Edelman Trust Barometer,1 taken in 2024 among the Canadian population, 59% of Canadian respondents believe that business leaders purposely mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations. A marked distrust is noted towards traditional leaders and the heads of companies. For all of these reasons, the Bank must publicly disclose the non-confidential data of its country-by-country report on a yearly basis. This proposal received 10.31% of the votes cast at the last AGM. 1 https://www.edelman.ca/sites/g/files/aatuss376/files/2024-03/2024%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barome-ter_Rapport_Canadien_EN_0.pdf

DISCLAIMER: By including a shareholder resolution or management proposal in this database, neither the PRI nor the sponsor of the resolution or proposal is seeking authority to act as proxy for any shareholder; shareholders should vote their proxies in accordance with their own policies and requirements.

Any voting recommendations set forth in the descriptions of the resolutions and management proposals included in this database are made by the sponsors of those resolutions and proposals, and do not represent the views of the PRI.

Information on the shareholder resolutions, management proposals and votes in this database have been obtained from sources that are believed to be reliable, but the PRI does not represent that it is accurate, complete, or up-to-date, including information relating to resolutions and management proposals, other signatories’ vote pre-declarations (including voting rationales), or the current status of a resolution or proposal. You should consult companies’ proxy statements for complete information on all matters to be voted on at a meeting.