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Dissident Ex-Board Member Sues Disney
Thu Apr 8, 9:26 PM ET Add Business - AP to My Yahoo!
By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES - Dissident former board member Roy E. Disney is suing The Walt Disney Co. to force the media giant to reveal how company employees voted on the re-election of CEO Michael Eisner at last month's shareholders meeting.
Roy Disney and the company have been corresponding for several weeks on a method for revealing how employees who own stock through company retirement plans voted their shares.
The former board member and nephew of company co-founder Walt Disney wants the results in order to verify his belief that a large number of company workers withheld their support from Eisner's re-election to the board — a sign of declining morale at the company.
The company has noted that only about 24,000 of the company's 110,000 active employees participate in the Disney 401(k) plan.
Overall, shareholders withheld 43 percent of votes cast from Eisner's re-election to the board. Afterward, the board relieved Eisner of his chairman duties and named board member George Mitchell to the post.
In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Roy Disney objects to a demand from the company that he sign a confidentiality agreement before viewing a report showing how employees voted.
In letters to Roy Disney, company lawyers have said that federal law governing retirement plans requires that companies protect the identity of employee shareholders in order to prevent "undue coercion of participants."
"Serious issues of confidentiality have arisen and those issues need to be resolved prior to disclosure of this information, and they know that," company spokeswoman Zenia Mucha said.
Roy Disney said he does not wish to know how individual workers voted, but rather how participants in the company's 401(k) and other retirement plans voted as a group
Dissident Ex-Board Member Sues Disney
Thu Apr 8, 9:26 PM ET Add Business - AP to My Yahoo!
By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES - Dissident former board member Roy E. Disney is suing The Walt Disney Co. to force the media giant to reveal how company employees voted on the re-election of CEO Michael Eisner at last month's shareholders meeting.
Roy Disney and the company have been corresponding for several weeks on a method for revealing how employees who own stock through company retirement plans voted their shares.
The former board member and nephew of company co-founder Walt Disney wants the results in order to verify his belief that a large number of company workers withheld their support from Eisner's re-election to the board — a sign of declining morale at the company.
The company has noted that only about 24,000 of the company's 110,000 active employees participate in the Disney 401(k) plan.
Overall, shareholders withheld 43 percent of votes cast from Eisner's re-election to the board. Afterward, the board relieved Eisner of his chairman duties and named board member George Mitchell to the post.
In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Roy Disney objects to a demand from the company that he sign a confidentiality agreement before viewing a report showing how employees voted.
In letters to Roy Disney, company lawyers have said that federal law governing retirement plans requires that companies protect the identity of employee shareholders in order to prevent "undue coercion of participants."
"Serious issues of confidentiality have arisen and those issues need to be resolved prior to disclosure of this information, and they know that," company spokeswoman Zenia Mucha said.
Roy Disney said he does not wish to know how individual workers voted, but rather how participants in the company's 401(k) and other retirement plans voted as a group
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