American Battery Technology Company (OTCQB:ABML) revealed that the company's board has approved and adopted amended and restated bylaws, while initiating several new corporate governance policies, including a code of conduct.
The Reno, Nevada-based critical battery materials company said the restated bylaws included a related persons transactions policy, and an insider trading policy.
“As we continue our sustainable transition to a commercial manufacturing and operations company within the battery metals industry, the board decided the time is right to enhance our governance procedures and bylaws,” said Elizabeth Lowery, ABTC’s lead independent director and Nominations and Corporate Governance Committee chair. “We believe these steps will ensure decisions are made in the best interest of all our shareholders and expand engagement opportunities.”
Over the past several years, ABTC has transformed itself into a technology development and commercialization company focused on domestic primary battery metals production and the recycling of lithium-ion batteries for the recovery of battery metals.
The company’s prior corporate bylaws and governance policies, adopted more than a decade ago, were more appropriate for the mineral rights acquisition company ABTC was at the time, noted the company. The board said it believes the changes to the company’s corporate governance structure will be more appropriate for ABTC’s business going forward as a technology development and commercialization firm.
As part of the Amended and Restated Bylaws, the board has approved numerous changes to the governance of the company to provide greater opportunity for stockholder participation, including:
- Increasing the quorum required for annual meetings of stockholders to one-third of the shares entitled to vote to match NASDAQ governance requirements;
- Reducing the requirement to remove a director to a majority vote of the outstanding shares; and
- Improving the process to hold special meetings.
The board said it plans to seek a non-binding, advisory stockholder vote to ratify the Amended and Restated Bylaws at its 2022 annual meeting, expected to be held in the fourth quarter.
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