Laws
enacted in the United States since the 1970s to
protect the individual’s pension fund savings
require institutional investors to actively monitor
and vote their holdings (i.e. Erisa 1974,
Avon Letter 1986). As a consequence, engaged
institutional investors have fought to gain
more information from and rights over management
– sometimes even engaging in a
public debate that has engulfed the courts,
the legislatures and the press (cf. Davis and
Thompson, 1994; Brancato, 1996).