Malcolm Moore

So one resolution was actually to reverse some previous shareholder resolutions around climate reporting.

So in 2015, and then again in 2019, BP had put out resolutions which obliged it to basically release a lot of data around its sort of climate change performance.

BP now argues that's just pointless duplication because we have a sort of mandatory reporting framework, which already encompasses all that stuff.

But obviously, it just put the backs up of all the people who think that BP, this oil major, is reversing its climate obligations.

And so there was a kind of a symbolic vote, and it only got 47% support.

The other resolution, they wanted to hold electronic

annual general meetings.

And their argument here is basically lots of our shareholders are across the world.

Therefore, we want to democratize the process by giving them the right to attend.

But I guess again, here, there were big questions about whether shareholders would be able to have their say.

And so that one also only got 47% support.

Well, look, it should have been a pretty upbeat meeting, right?

Because if you look at BP's performance this year, the shares are up 30%.

You know, you've got a new chair who's clearly very active.

You've got a new chief executive, Meg O'Neill, who just started on the 1st of April.

And they're promising that they're going to pay a lot more attention to shareholder value after years of destroying billions of dollars of shareholder value.

Everyone should be happy.

Instead, they kind of shot themselves in the foot by putting these resolutions out there and also by refusing to allow the climate activists follow this to lodge their own resolution, which basically said, what happens BP to your business if oil and gas collapse?

goes down and you can't sell as much, they basically said, oh, that had been incorrectly filed and therefore they were legally banned not to accept it.

But again, by quashing that resolution and not allowing them to table it, they raised more sort of heckles amongst the people who really care about corporate governance.