The
unequal voting power enjoyed by Zuckerberg is the reason why activist shareholders want to abolish the existing share structure.
The success of Snap's offering, however, rallied opponents of companies that issue different classes of stock with unequal voting rights ("dual-class" companies).
Dual-class companies depart from the "one share, one vote" rule by issuing different classes of common shares with unequal voting rights, (61) but equal or similar entitlements to earnings.
The country will likely head into the 2020 elections as a two-tiered democracy with separate and
unequal voting laws.
Empirical Analysis of
Unequal Voting Structures 516
"MSCI will temporarily treat any securities of companies exhibiting
unequal voting structures as ineligible for addition to the MSCI ACWI Investable Market Index and MSCI US Investable Market 2500 Index," the company said in a statement.
Investors may grouse about
unequal voting rights, but industry observers don't see anything changing for dual-class stock media congloms.
Behind Baker is an empirical assumption that when citizens hold
unequal voting weight, their elected representatives will be more attentive to those holding more electoral weight.
After ten years of sustained effort, in the face of an
unequal voting system unfavourable to small parties, a new deputy to the National Assembly was elected.
That it was not is a sad statement about the seriousness with which most Democrats took their party's pledge to "count all the votes this time"--and about the prospects for reform of erratic and
unequal voting systems that, as Conyers and his aides have ably illustrated, are prone to abuses that undermine confidence in America's democratic experiment.
Conversely, where different classes of stock had
unequal voting rights, it would be possible for a corporation to be a member of the "qualified group" even though 80 percent of its voting power represents a far smaller share of its total value.