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Thanks to Scott Hirst‘s articles and papers on the subject, I can borrow his catchy label for one of biggest current problems in corporate governance. Frozen charters are supermajority provisions that are impossible to repeal. He appears to attribute that to the 2012 change by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which changed its policies to prohibit brokers from voting uninstructed shares on corporate governance proposals. I would lay a larger share of the blame on founders who wrote the frozen charters to forever retain a large degree of control. Regardless of who is to blame, frozen charters are a problem that needs fixed.  Managers, boards, shareholders, Republicans and Democrats should all be able agree on a solution. Continue Reading →