Are we witnessing a rise in AGM protests? While often a forum for disagreements with shareholders, this year’s AGM season was characterized by a marked rise in public campaigns targeting annual meetings – particularly in the UK – each of which gained significant press attention.
In May, Shell’s 2025 AGM was interrupted by activists from Amnesty International UK, Fossil Free London and campaigners from Justice 4 Nigeriawho staged an ‘oil spill’ protest outside of the energy company’s global headquarters in central London.
Earlier that month the Drax Group, owner of the Drax power station, had to abandon its AGM when up to 20 activists had to be forcibly removed from the meeting venue. Other companies like BP, Barclays, Tesco’s and Raiffeisen Bank have all experienced something similar over the past 12 months.
With this trend seemingly becoming more common place, how can corporate governance teams prepare for the prospect of a protest and what impact can it have on AGM outcomes?
Getting ahead of the curve
Getting the basics right is of tantamount importance, says Peter Reilly, a governance expert and managing partner in FTI Consulting’s governance, ESG and sustainability practice.
Peter Reilly, FTI Consulting
‘First it is all about planning and rehearsing,’ he says. ‘Second, I think one of the big things for general counsel and corporate secretaries in general is to ensure that the board is prepared around the AGM.’
In the case of a protester, aside from a strong contingency plan equipped with the necessary security measures, Reilly says that showing a certain level or empathy rather than a hardened stance can also help deescalate the situation.
‘Businesses don’t operate in isolation and for most protesters this is a cause that’s fairly close to their heart. Demonstrate that you’re listening, even if it’s a challenge in the moment and keep going,’ he says.
This approach will help to dissipate things and is most significant to the outcome. ‘I wouldn’t ever advocate the ostrich approach,’ he says.
Another trend, first set in motion after travel was restricted during the Covid-19 pandemic, is that a growing number of companies holding their AGMs online. But whether you decide to hold an in-person AGM or not, you can’t escape the issues that people care about: ‘You still have an office, you still have locations, people are aware of your information’, Reilly says.
So, while it might seem best in the short term, ‘publicly-listed companies have a responsibility to not disenfranchise smaller, maybe retail shareholders who want to ask the CEO about the dividend – for example – in person’, he advises.
In the past year there were just four companies holding fully virtual AGMs in the UK, according to research by law firm White & Case: Clarksons, Tui (which has since delisted its shares in London), Aston Martin, Haleon and food producer group Bakkavor.
‘We need to give people a voice’
Chevron, the US multinational energy corporation, began holding virtual AGMs in 2020, specifically in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Five years later and the company has continued to hold their AGMs remotely, a decision that Kari Endries, Chevron’s assistant secretary and managing counsel, says ‘worked for us’.
Kari Endries, Chevron
‘We found that it wasn’t as difficult as we thought it would be [to hold a virtual AGM],’ she explains. ‘We make sure that we give people a voice and an opportunity to come up and talk.’
Their meetings are also timed, which helps keep things concise and in turn engagement up and keep unexcepted occurrences to a minimum. ‘In the past you never really knew what you were going to get,’ says Endries.
Doing things virtually has also helped the company save not just on some costs but also manpower. ‘Before we’d have people out there checking in attendees, walking people in or even to escort people out for bad behavior,’ she notes.
So, while in some ways it’s probably safer for everybody to hold AGMs in a remote or online format, Endries reminds us that protests remain a little bit out of the control of companies: ‘The best we can do is make sure our board and employees are notified, with adequate safeguards in place.’
On the technical side
Lumi Global, which has been delivering meeting technology for around 22 years, had first-hand experience of what exactly an AGM protest means for its clients in the past year. One of those clients, HSBC, considered holding its AGM only for virtual attendees due to the threat of climate protestors – with Lumi managing the online aspects. Ultimately, the in-person part went ahead, though the bank faced questions from investors tackling its net zero commitments and other environmental policies.
Peter Fowler. Lumi’s chief operating officer references Jimmy Choo as the first virtual AGM of a UK-listed company in 2016, a change driven largely by the facts that the luxury retailer has a largely US-based shareholder base and that it had an international board, split across several geographies.
Peter Fowler, Lumi
He notes that it is legislation that has driven the uptake of virtual AGMs, especially in the US where regulations are state-driven and clearly defined.
‘Delaware is the obvious one, where most of the companies are incorporated, and therefore when Delaware State enabled virtual meetings, I think that’s where you saw the rise in virtual meetings in the US,’ said Fowler.
‘Covid was a huge part of technology growth as far as video conferencing and audio conferencing. It has positively influenced the governance world and the corporate secretariat departments of each respective listed company.’
The evidence of this in the numbers, says Sylvie Harton, Lumi’s chief business strategy officer, who found that for the first time this year ‘hybrid has surpassed in-room meetings in terms of proportion’.
At the same time, security and reliability remain a top priority. ‘Our security team operates not only internally but also with our auditing teams. We implement measures like two-factor authentication and SOC 2 certification, ISO 27,001 standards, which our customers demand of us,’ explains Fowler.
Sylvie Harton, Lumi
When faced with a disruptive protester taking over an AGM, Harton says that it has an exclusionary effect on shareholders more than anything else.
‘This isn’t just about the security of the boards of or the attendee. Technology used in a hybrid setting allows you to make sure that you’re transparent and inclusive, and everybody has a voice,’ she says.
But what’s new for the world of AGMs has long been a fixture in IR. ‘IR has been running like this [remotely/hybrid] for years. Analysts have been calling in, asking questions. They haven’t been going to physical meetings. They do this all the time. Why can’t we apply this to AGMs?,’ Fowler asks.
Holding feet to fire
Protesters aside, many shareholders and investor groups believe that online-only AGMs will limit shareholder access and potential scrutiny.
One much-talked about example from this year was UK B2B publishing company Informa, which moved its AGM from London to Nice, France at the eleventh hour.
The official reason for this was that it would coincide with its largest event, Cannes Lions, which is now part of the Informa Festivals division and which would allow Informa’s board to attend the festival.
The fact that most of Informa’s shareholders were not able to attend the new location, due to the short notice and the expense of traveling to the South of France at short notice, meant that the AGM was in effect online-only.
Jen Sisson, CEO of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), feels that fully virtual AGMs ‘significantly’ limit the ability of shareholders, especially minority shareholders, to interact with boards and management, ask unmoderated questions, and make statements from the floor.
Jen Sisson, ICGN
‘ICGN encourages companies to provide hybrid AGMs, which offer shareholders – who are the owners of the company – the option of virtual or live participation,’ she explains. ‘This is a great way to widen access whilst also protecting fundamental ownership rights for shareholders.’
While in some cases there are risks with in person meetings, such as the need for security and to manage protests, many shareholders believe that fully virtual AGMs should be for ‘emergency situations only’.
Conversely Fowler says he’s ‘never seen it’ come to this. Instead, he says that you may see the prioritization of questions versus others, often in line with a specific theme or talking point.
For Peter Swabey, policy and research director at Chartered Governance Institute (CGI) UK and Ireland, AGM protesters split into two groups which largely dictates how they can be dealt with.
In his view, there are those who are activists protesting about a company’s direct activity, then there are others who are making a general political protest and want to target a household name for added publicity.
‘The first group who are looking for something specific can be engaged with by the company and decide whether what they want is a good thing or not,’ says Swabey. ‘Those who are just there to protest and no matter what the company says or does,are more difficult as their opinions are already fixed.’
Avoiding disenfranchisement
Disruptive as protests can be, the impact on the outcomes of AGMs seem to be minimal as Swabey notes that ‘activist investors have a whole heap of other mechanisms that they can use for engagement with the company’ and drive change.
Hybrid AGMs generally work well but have to be managed carefully and, in some cases, can be more costly because of the requirement for a robust digital platform and a suitable in-person venue exists.
Peter Swabey, CGI
As for fully remote, ‘I think a lot of people would take the view at the moment that a completely online meeting is not legal under UK law’, says Swabey. The UK is currently reviewing this under the proposed ‘Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill’, which aims to strengthen corporate governance and audit practices in the UK by replacing the FRC with a new regulator – the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority – and extending Public Interest Entity status to large private companies.
The bill also aims to clarify the legality of virtual AGMs in the UK: a draft is due to be published later this year.
Moving to an online-first AGM has its drawbacks when it comes to engagement, however. ‘The downside is of course that it can disenfranchise people as well. You don’t have people feeling that they’re able to engage in the same way,’ Swabey says.
There is a degree to which the technology has driven some of the uptick in protests but, overall, what has been seen so far has been limited to a relatively small number of meetings, he explains.
‘You’ll see some of the really, really big FTSE companies which regularly get protesters and have developed systems in place to try and manage the process, but that is not the case for most AGMs,’ he says.
In the end, it’s not the technology but how it’s used that will shape virtual AGMs — and for protesters, the recent surge may be more smoke than fire.