According to the pension funds, AT&T previously committed to voluntarily releasing this information after a similar shareholder proposal in 2020. The company publicly disclosed the reports from 2021 through 2023, the funds said, but stopped doing so in 2024 without providing an explanation.
AT&T sought to exclude the renewed proposal for the 2026 proxy season and obtained a “no-action” letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January. The letter indicated that SEC staff would not recommend enforcement action if AT&T left the proposal off its ballot, based on the company’s position that it was excludable under Rule 14a-8, which governs shareholder proposals.
The pension funds contended in their complaint that, historically, they would have had an opportunity to respond before the SEC issued its determination. However, they pointed to an SEC statement from November indicating that staff would not provide substantive responses to most no-action requests for the 2026 proxy season.
Case Details
The lawsuit, titled New York City Employees’ Retirement System et al. v. AT&T Inc., case number 1:26-cv-01310, was assigned to Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan federal court.
