The Stewardship Code and Shareholder Engagement: The End of the Road

Since the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) issued the initial version of the Stewardship Code in 2010, fostering shareholder engagement in publicly traded companies has been a core Code element. When the FRC promulgated the 2020 Stewardship Code the FRC responded to evidence that prior versions had fallen short on the shareholder activism front by emphasising disclosure of engagement outcomes by Code signatories. This article indicates that the 2026 Stewardship Code reverts substantially to the ineffective pre-2020 approach, explains why the change occurred and argues that this is the end of the road with respect to shareholder engagement and the Stewardship Code.