Joy to the World (or At Least to Wall Street)

Just how thrilled is corporate America with the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision today to give companies the green light to exclude shareholder proposals at corporate annual meetings?

Well, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the New York firm legendary for representing corporate management—name partner Martin Lipton invented the poison pill defense—blasted an email letter to clients this afternoon heralding the news.

"We applaud the S.E.C.'s decision, and we will continue to resist any further efforts to expand election contests through access to a company's proxy statement," the memo reads.

Investors might be somewhat less chuffed. By holding the vote, S.E.C. chairman Christopher Cox ignored pleas by investor advocates to wait for the White House to fill an empty seat on the commission's five-person board.

The empty seat will be filled by a Democrat, whose members are sympathetic to the idea of making it easier for shareholders to nominate directors of the companies they (nominally) own.

Cox declined to wait, and the vote on the controversial proposal was 3-1 on party lines.

The fight might not be over just yet, though.

The Wachtell memo acknowledges that at least one labor union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, has threatened a lawsuit. Stay tuned.

by Karen Donovan

_{Photograph of S.E.C. chairman Christopher Cox by: Chris Hondros/Getty Images}