Actually believe it or not, as some other commenters have said, Section 220 gives every shareholder the right to get all of the information they would need to estimate the value of their shares. This would definitely include financials and cap table. The reasons so few invoke (IMHO) their rights include:
--They don't know their rights
--Most employees want to stay on the good side of their company
--Companies can and usually do fight these requests making it costly (in time and sometimes legal fees) for the employee to get the information they need
--The request for information has to be done in a very specific way for it to work. For example, you may have to go "inspect" a physical copy of the company's records at the company rather than receiving anything electronically
>For example, you may have to go "inspect" a physical copy of the company's records at the company rather than receiving anything electronically
Last year, I learned that a similar law was invoked by college students to gain access to their application files kept by the University Registrar [1]. The student, upon making the information request, would go into the registrar office and "inspect a physical copy" of the file, just like you said.
[1] My alma mater wrote to me about this since a student I had interviewed as part of the application process had made this request, and my report was part of "his file".
--Jeron @ capshare.com