As automatic-enrolment workplace pensions are rolled out to more employees UK pressure group, ShareAction, which campaigns to achieve ‘an investment system that truly serves savers and communities, and protects our environment for the long term’, has produced its first benchmarking survey of the market. The nine leading pension providers in this market were examined and an overall benchmark score […]

Read More

Audit committees are increasingly overloaded and UK companies are looking at other way to monitor corporate responsibility (CR)  and sustainability issues, according to a report published by the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE). An IBE survey of the FTSE 350 carried out with the support of the ICSA: The Governance Institute and Mazars found that […]

Read More

Achieving good corporate governance and behaviour must go beyond codes and towards developing the right culture across organisations and the leaders of companies must be integrated into that culture, according to Sir Wim Bischoff chairman of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) speaking recently at the Financial Times Banking Standards Conference (8th March). Bischoff said, “Codes put forward […]

Read More

It has been widely reported that social media giant Facebook is changing its tax structure in Europe which will result in it paying higher levels of tax in the UK. The profits from the majority of Facebook’s advertising revenue initiated in Britain will now be taxed in the UK rather than being routed through Ireland, which has a lower […]

Read More

Top executive pay should not be linked to performance as the work they do is difficult to measure and such pay may actually be damaging to companies, according to a recent article by two academics in the Harvard Business Review. It is not unusual for 60-80% of the pay of chief executives and other senior leaders, […]

Read More

Shareholders in Australian companies are now more likely to have their votes taken on a poll by default instead of the traditional show of hands. Two-thirds of companies targeted by a global collaborative investor initiative have moved towards using polls, according to the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI). The initiative was led by US  pensions provider, TIAA, with […]

Read More

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank, and BSE (formerly the Bombay Stock Exchange) are working together to develop a corporate governance scorecard which  will help Indian companies assess their corporate governance performances against national or international-benchmarked practices. The aim is that companies can use the scorecard to identify areas of corporate governance that require improvement and […]

Read More

The theme of International Women’s Day this week (8th March) was a Pledge for Parity, trying to achieve equal opportunities for women globally. The World Economics Forum said it will be 117 years before women have the same career prospects as men. However, recent research it has carried out shows that what has changed is that gender equality […]

Read More

Although the pace of change is slow female representation on European boards and executive committees at 220 organisations across 11 sectors is growing, according to the latest research from think-tank New Financial. The percentage of women on boards has increased three percentage points to 23% compared to a year ago, and female representation on executive committees […]

Read More

Chemring Group, a specialist designer and manufacturer for the aerospace, defence and security industries, that was forced to engage with shareholders last year following a high level of dissent at its AGM over its remuneration practices may still not have done enough to meet investor concerns. Last year there was a large 48.02% vote against its […]

Read More