The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to a proposal by conservative investors to investigate PayPal’s discrimination against customers based on political and religious views.
The SEC allowed the National Center for Public Policy Research’s proposal to go to PayPal’s next annual shareholder meeting, Epoch first reported.
In a letter to PayPal’s lawyers, the SEC said that the NCPPR’s proposal “requests that the board conduct an evaluation and issue a report within the next year evaluating how it oversees risks related to discrimination against individuals based on their race, color, religion (including religious views), sex, national origin, or political views, and whether such discrimination may impact individuals’ exercise of their constitutionally protected civil rights.”
PayPal requested the SEC block the proposal from going to a vote. It argued that shareholders should not consider the proposal because viewpoint discrimination is “ordinary business operations” for the company and that “the proposal seeks to ‘micro-manage’ the company by probing too deeply into matters of a complex nature upon which shareholders, as a group, would not be in a position to make an informed judgment.”
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The SEC told the company: “We are unable to concur in your view that the Company may exclude the Proposal under Rule 14a-8(i)(7). In our view, the Proposal transcends ordinary business matters.”
NCPPR’s proposal noted that, “companies that provide banking or financial services are essential pillars of the marketplace. On account of their unique and pivotal role in America’s economy, many federal and state laws already prohibit them from discriminating when providing financial services to the public. And the UN Declaration of Human Rights, consistent with many other laws and the U.S. Constitution, recognizes that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.’”
