Originally Posted by
brunos
Frankly, that is not my point. All of this is just symbolic, but symbols are important. If the State wants to send a strong message to the board, especially to the executive directors, their representative should vote against, not abstain.
But they can't. There is no "no" vote. I wasn't clear when I said that only yes vote are counted, sorry: they're just asking "who is in favour of proposition number XYZ" ? and they look if the number of voting shares is > 50% of shares. Basically, you're handed a card where all the proposal numbers are mentionned, and you check the ones you approve. There is no "no" option to check, they just count the voting bulletin as "yes". You either check or don't do anything (and abstain).
I don't know who's paying but I assume it's the entity that paid his salary as it's part of his work severance package. I agree with you it's all symbolic anyway since it's probable they won't get the money back.