Amazon at odds with SEC over allowing shareholder vote on gender pay gap

US regulator says the e-commerce retailer cannot omit a proposal addressing the pay gap and it should be voted on at the May shareholder meeting

Amazon took legal action in an attempt to avoid having to hold a shareholder vote on whether it should work to reduce the gap between how much it pays male and female staff.

Lawyers for the world's largest retailer asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to give it permission not to include a vote on addressing the gender pay gap at its forthcoming shareholding meeting, because a proposal brought by activist investors was "impermissibly vague and misleading".