Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., which helps large investors make voting choices in corporate proxy contests, will pay $300,000 to resolve U.S. regulatory claims that an employee exchanged confidential client voting information for meals and concert tickets.

ISS failed to establish or enforce written policies or safeguards as the employee misused information on more than 100 clients from 2007 through 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission said today in an administrative order. The firm, based in Rockville, Maryland, also lacked sufficient controls over employee access to databases of confidential client-vote information, the SEC said.

“Proxy advisers must tailor their controls based on the risks of their particular business in order to protect the integrity of the proxy voting process,” Julie Riewe, deputy chief of the SEC enforcement division's asset management unit, said in a statement.