Reuters reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has turned down an effort by Apple Inc to skip a shareholder proposal.
The proposal asked the Apple to be more open in its efforts to keep forced labour out of its supply chain.
Reuters recounts that a group of shareholders, earlier this year, asked Apple’s board to report how the it protects workers in its supply chain from forced labour.
The shareholders demanded that Apple discussed the extent to which it has identified suppliers and sub-suppliers that are a risk for forced labour.
The SEC denied Apple’s move to block the proposal, because “it does not appear that the essential objectives of the proposal have been implemented”, according to Reuters.
Reuters says Apple routinely asks the SEC to skip shareholder proposals, and the requests are granted about half the time.
The SEC also denied Apple’s request to skip a shareholder proposal that would give investors more information about the company’s use of non-disclosure agreements, according to Reuters.
