Company: ALGN
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001097149-25-000021
Chunk: 113

Company: ALIGN TECHNOLOGY INC
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 113
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 aware that p reparing for, and holding, special meetings is time-consuming and expensive, and that holding a special meeting at the request of a small number of stockholders has the potential to injure Align, as special meetings demand significant attention from our Board and senior management and disrupt normal business operations. In addition, with each special meeting, we must pay to prepare, print, and distribute disclosure documents to stockholders, solicit proxies, hold the meeting, and tabulate votes, among other things, regardless of whether the meeting is held in person or virtually .

This Proposal 6 is the product of our Board’s continuing review of our corporate governance practices, our Board’s consideration of the stockholder special meeting proposal outlined in Proposal 7, and our Board’s desire for our stockholders play an active role in the governance of their company. Our Board believes that the 10% ownership threshold to call a special meeting, as provided in Proposal 7, is too low and results in the risk that a single stockholder, or a small group of stockholders, calls a special meeting of stockholders to advance their own special interests at our expense. In contrast, our Board believes that a 25% ownership threshold is consistent with market practice .

Our Board believes that a 25% ownership will contribute to an open and constructive forum for stockholders to express concerns, allow Align to understand the priorities and perspectives of its stockholders, and enable Align to effectively address the issues that matter most to its stockholders, while ensuring that spec ial meetings are held sparingly to address extraordinary matters considered so significant or urgent that they require immediate consideration by all stockholders outside of an annual meeting.

#### Role of Stockholder Engagement
Align has extensive history proactively engaging with stockholders, listening and responding to their questions and seeking out their input as well as ensuring open and robust two-way communications exist between stockholders and our Board. As part of Align’s extensive stockholder outreach program, members of the Board, management and other senior leaders at least annually (and frequently more often) seek out engagement with, and meet, large percentages of our stockholders to gather their input on a wide variety of topics, including our corporate governance practices. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, we reached out to 67%, 57% and 71% of our stockholders, respectively, and thereafter engaged with 31%, 22% and 39% of our stockholders, respectively. In fact, as recently as the period from January 202