Warren Buffett's company rejects proposals, but it faces lawsuit over how it handled one last year

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Shareholder proposals are usually uneventful at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting. But Warren Buffett and the company are now facing a lawsuit over the way one presenter was treated last year.

“I’ve never been interrupted while making a shareholder presentation. I’ve never had my mic cut, and I’ve never been removed from a meeting room. And I’ve certainly never been arrested,” Flaherty said, “Those things were unprecedented for me.”

The issue last year was that Flaherty questioned the character of one of Buffett's best friends and a former Berkshire board member, Bill Gates. Flaherty suggested that Buffett's close association with Gates could hurt Berkshire's reputation because of reports that Gates had been associated with Jeffrey Epstein before he was arrested for sex trafficking. So he was proposing that Berkshire give someone else Buffett's chairman title while leaving him as CEO.