GRS counts over 15 companies that have adopted policies in the past three years including Lucent Technologies (available here and here) and The Kroger Company (available here). Increasingly, however, boards are discovering that not just any policy will placate shareholders. Withdrawals in 2006 often involved extended negotiations on such topics as how to define the term "benefits."

Some companies were unable to persuade shareholders that new policies were adequate. After it failed to convince the Amalgamated Bank's LongView to withdraw its binding by-law proposal at the company this year, Halliburton announced that it would put its own policy on the ballot, and sought a no-action to exclude the fund's binding proposal on the grounds that it conflicts with a company proposal on the same topic. LongView counsel Cornish Hitchcock wrote the SEC to counter that argument: "The company's proposal omits key provisions and adds loopholes that undercut the policy approved by shareholders, with the result that the resemblances between the Fund's 2005 proposal and the Company's proposal are largely linguistic."

In 2005, Borders was able to exclude a proposal as already implemented, even though the proponent felt the policy didn't go far enough. Said proponent John Chevedden's, "The SEC gave Borders a free pass in exchange for a fig leaf."

Will the SEC reach the same decision for Halliburton? Stay tuned.