SEC says Eli Lilly can't avoid requests for more info on diversity efforts, abortion stance
Eli Lilly must address proposals requesting reports on its diversity, equity and inclusion progress, and its abortion policies, the SEC determined last week.
The news comes after Eli Lilly announced several months ago that the company would “be forced to plan for more employment growth outside of our home state” due to Indiana’s abortion ban, “one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the United States.”
The National Center for Public Policy Research filed a proposal requesting a report detailing the “foreseeable risks and costs to the Company caused by opposing or otherwise altering Company policy in response to enacted or proposed state policies regulating abortion, and detailing any strategies beyond litigation and legal compliance that the Company may deploy to minimize or mitigate these risks.”
However, Eli Lilly wrote to the SEC in December to announce its intent to omit the proposal from its proxy statement, arguing that the proposal “does not raise significant social policy considerations that transcend ordinary business” and “attempts to micromanage” the company.
The SEC disagreed on March 10, determining that Lilly can’t omit the proposal or another seeking a report on the company’s DE&I efforts. That proposal requests that Lilly “provide transparency on outcomes, using quantitative metrics for hiring, retention, and promotion of employees, including data by gender, race, and ethnicity.”
Eli Lilly has long pledged its dedication to addressing systemic racism and health inequity, and in 2020 CEO Dave Ricks set a goal to increase African American representation in its US workforce to 13%.
“This won’t happen overnight, but we have the strategies in place – and are accelerating progress – to get there,” he wrote in an announcement. “By using our collective voice and influence, we can be part of the solution — and help create the change we want to see within our own organizations and within our communities.”
Eli Lilly declined to comment on Thursday.