May institutions post candidate disclosures on their Web sites in lieu of mailing?
Maybe. While we encourage use of Web-based technology for communications, institutions must do so under our electronic commerce rules (e-commerce) at 12 C.F.R. part 609. Our e-commerce rules require institutions to have the consent of all parties to a transaction before using e-commerce in business transactions. We consider director elections to be business transactions; therefore, unless all voting stockholders have agreed to the use of e-commerce, it cannot replace written mailings of candidate disclosures. However, institutions may use Web-based posting of candidate disclosures as a supplement to the mailed disclosures. Institutions would need to give notice to all voting stockholders that candidate disclosures will also be available on its Web site. Then the institution may post the disclosures on the Internet after a reasonable amount of time has passed since the disclosures were mailed (to allow for receipt).
