Four New York City public pension funds have sued AT&T Inc., accusing the telecommunications company of unlawfully excluding a shareholder proposal that would require it to publicly disclose detailed workforce demographic data.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York, New York City Police Pension Fund and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System said AT&T violated federal securities law by refusing to include the pension funds’ proposal in its 2026 proxy materials.
The suit is one of the first legal actions taken by NYC Comptroller Mark Levine, who took office on January 1. The comptroller is the fiduciary for the city’s five pension funds.
The funds are seeking an injunction preventing AT&T from soliciting shareholder proxies for its 2026 annual meeting unless the proposal is included, according to the complaint.
The proposal, submitted in December 2025, asks AT&T’s board to adopt a policy requiring public disclosure of its Consolidated EEO-1 Report, which breaks down the company’s workforce by race, ethnicity and gender. The company already prepares and submits the report annually to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the complaint said.
The pension funds said they collectively owned about 8.1 million shares of AT&T stock worth approximately $209 million as of December 2025 and met all eligibility requirements under Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 14a-8 for submitting shareholder proposals.
According to the complaint, AT&T voluntarily disclosed its EEO-1 report between 2021 and 2023 after the funds submitted a similar proposal in 2020 but stopped doing so in 2024 without explanation.
AT&T notified the SEC in late December that it intended to omit the proposal under the “ordinary business” exclusion in Rule 14a-8(i)(7). Shortly after receiving AT&T’s notice, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance said it would not object to the exclusion, citing a November 2025 policy change under which the agency said it would not substantively respond to most no-action requests so long as companies provide an “unqualified representation” that they have a reasonable basis to exclude a proposal.
The funds argue that the ordinary business exception does not apply because the proposal does not seek to micromanage AT&T and raises significant policy issues that transcend day-to-day operations.
The funds allege AT&T’s exclusion of the proposal violates Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 14a-8, saying omitting the measure would cause “irreparable” harm by depriving shareholders of the opportunity to vote on it.
AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the New York City Comptroller’s Office.