JLens and ADL applaud the decision by Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”), a leading independent proxy advisory firm, to recommend investors vote against an anti-Israel shareholder proposal in Amazon's 2024 proxy statement.
Titled “Customer Due Diligence,” Shareholder Proposal 6 seeks to end the company's involvement in Project Nimbus—a $1.2 billion cloud computing agreement with the Israeli government. This threatens to unjustly deprive Israel's essential social services and the Israel Defense Forces of crucial technologies.
While Proposal 6 ostensibly aims to uphold human rights, it singles out Israel as the sole foreign country and is supported by multiple false statements alleging that the Israeli government uses Amazon Web Services “to support the apartheid system under which Palestinians are surveilled, unlawfully detained, and tortured.”
“The accusations made against Israel are a fundamental distortion of what this country stands for, in particular equal treatment of all citizens,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “Amazon shareholders must reject the anti-Israel rhetoric of the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement by voting against Proposal 6.”
On April 12th, ADL and JLens filed a Notice of Exempt Solicitation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, opposing Proposal 6. The notice was submitted because Proposal 6 contains language that was false and misleading, could embolden antisemitism in society, and seeks to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist.
“Hate speech does not belong in corporate proxy statements,” said JLens Managing Director Ari Hoffnung. “Words matter and we urge shareholders to reject the hateful, false and misleading rhetoric seeking to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist by voting against Proposal 6.”
According to research published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, ISS and Glass Lewis are the largest proxy advisory firms globally in terms of the number of corporate issuers covered, proxy voting recommendations provided, and the number and size of institutional investors served.
Amazon’s Board of Directors has recommended voting against Proposal 6. The company’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders is scheduled to be held at 9:00 a.m., Pacific Time, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. Amazon shareholders who have not yet voted are encouraged to refer to their proxy materials or contact their bank or broker to ensure their voice is heard.
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