Wells Fargo Boardroom Showdown Looms, Pitting Ever-Smug Buffett vs. Public Pension Funds

The bank does have one influential ally: Warren Buffett, whose firm, Berkshire Hathaway, owns about 10 percent of the company's shares. He has signaled that he intends to back the incumbent board, and his support could ultimately carry more weight than that of investors like pension funds, which tend to be more vocal in their criticism.

As of late Monday, a few large shareholders were leaning toward voting against some board members. (Two people joined the board in February, after the scandal had been widely exposed.)

"If there is a serious failure in oversight, directors need to be held accountable," said Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller. He helps oversee the city's pension funds, which are planning to vote against nine of the bank's 15 directors.''

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The vote is not only a serious challenge for Wells, one of the nation's largest banks. It is also a test for a decades-long movement among certain shareholders who have been pushing to hold corporate leaders more accountable.

"If we're serious about board accountability in this country, it's hard to understand the case for keeping these directors," said Robert J. Jackson, a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of the school's program on corporate law and policy.

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Yet for all the scandals that have rattled corporate America over the past decade -- such as those in the mortgage market and the media industry -- it is extremely rare for a board to take the fall.