Wilmington, DL, April 27, 2006--DuPont chairman and chief executive Chad Holliday Jr., heard criticism Wednesday at the company's annual meeting over the chemicals producer's lagging stock performance, treatment of retirees, and reluctance to share information about a controversial chemical used to manufacture Teflon.
In the end, shareholders defeated proposals aimed at forcing Wilmington-based DuPont to disclose more information about its practices and to hold executives more accountable for the company's performance.
But preliminary voting results showed that shareholders are increasingly concerned about perflourooctanoic acid, also called PFOA or C-8, a key ingredient in Teflon manufacturing and the subject of several lawsuits claiming it is a source of groundwater contamination and poses a risk to human health.
A proposal urging company directors to issue a report on PFOA compounds and evaluating the feasibility of phasing out the use of PFOA in the manufacturing of all DuPont products, including materials that may degrade to PFOA, failed 73 percent to 27 percent.
April Dreeke, a member of a dissident group called DuPont Shareholders for Fair Value, noted that a proposal to force the company to disclose more information on about its legal and public relations battles over PFOA garnered less than 9 percent of the vote at last year's annual meeting.
"People are paying attention, and it's obvious that DuPont is worried about it," Dreeke said after Wednesday's meeting.
Holliday defended the company's approach to PFOA, saying DuPont is an industry leader in reducing PFOA emissions and that there are no studies proving the chemical poses a risk to human health.
"As of now, we do not have a way to eliminate PFOA and continue to meet the customer needs we have today," he said.
Among other shareholder proposals defeated were efforts to tie executive compensation to the company's financial performance, to require a report to shareholders on internal controls related to potentially adverse effects of genetically modified organisms and to mandate a study on how to improve chemical plant security and guard against potentially catastrophic chemical releases.
