ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., a leading provider of corporate governance solutions to the global financial community, today announced the opening of its annual comment period for its 2011 proxy voting policies. The comment period, part of ISS’ policy development process, offers institutional investors, corporate issuers, and industry constituents the opportunity to provide feedback on ISS draft policy updates.

The comment period runs through November 11 and solicits feedback on ten updates to ISS’ proxy voting policy guidelines in markets worldwide. Topics covered include ‘say on pay’ and authorized capital requests in the US, dilution/burn rate limits regarding equity-based remuneration in Europe, board independence in Canada, Japanese pay disclosure/deep-discount options, and domestic issuers incorporated outside the US.

“Engaging with a broad range of market participants on our draft policies is crucial to ISS’ process for developing transparent policy guidelines,” said Steve Harvey, Head of Business at ISS. “Offering this level of transparency around our voting policies is unique to ISS and critical to representing balanced global policies for investors.”

ISS gathers input each year from clients and market constituents through a policy survey, issue-oriented roundtables and a unique open comment period to ensure its voting policies comprise a broad range of views. This year’s policy survey had over 900 respondents, highlighting that the importance of governance continues to resonate globally in the wake of the financial crisis. The full results from the survey are posted on ISS’ Policy Gateway.

“With so many changes to the market and regulatory landscape for governance this year, we focused on clients’ fundamental views and priorities regarding key corporate governance issues,” said Dr. Martha Carter, Head of Global Research at ISS. “Our policy formulation process is designed to be collaborative so investors and issuers can engage effectively on the most important topics.”

ISS plans to release its final 2011 U.S. and international policy updates late-November and its Global Policy Summary and Concise Guidelines in late-December. To participate in ISS’ comment period and learn more about its policy formulation process, please visit http://www.issgovernance.com/policy.

About ISS

ISS is the leading provider of corporate governance solutions to the global financial community. More than 1,700 clients rely on ISS' expertise to help them make more informed investment decisions on behalf of the owners of companies. ISS' services include objective governance research and analysis, end-to-end proxy voting and distribution solutions, turnkey securities class-action claims management, and reliable governance data and modeling tools. Our team of more than 500 research, technology and client service professionals are located in financial centers worldwide. Investors, regulators and media regularly turn to ISS experts for insight and data on trends in corporate governance, proxy voting operations and mechanics, and securities litigation. ISS is a subsidiary of MSCI Inc., a leading provider of investment decision support tools to investors globally.

This document and all of the information contained in it, including without limitation all text, data, graphs, charts (collectively, the "Information") is the property of ISS, or in some cases third party suppliers. The Information may not be reproduced or redisseminated in whole or in part without prior written permission of ISS.

The Information has not been submitted to, nor received approval from, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or any other regulatory body. None of the Information constitutes an offer to sell (or a solicitation of an offer to buy), or a promotion or recommendation of, any security, financial product or other investment vehicle or any trading strategy, and ISS does not endorse, approve or otherwise express any opinion regarding any issuer, securities, financial products or instruments or trading strategies.

The user of the Information assumes the entire risk of any use it may make or permit to be made of the Information.

ISS MAKES NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ORIGINALITY, ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, NON-INFRINGEMENT, COMPLETENESS, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE) WITH RESPECT TO ANY OF THE INFORMATION.

Without limiting any of the foregoing and to the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event shall ISS have any liability regarding any of the Information for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, consequential (including lost profits) or any other damages even if notified of the possibility of such damages. The foregoing shall not exclude or limit any liability that may not by applicable law be excluded or limited.