Sustainability reporting in the US needs improvement according to the chair of its Security and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White, in her key note address at the International Corporate Governance Network conference that took place in San Francisco this week. She said the regulator, along with companies and investors, needed to do more work on sustainability reporting including on whether, […]
Read MoreAchieving greater board diversity to improve company performance was the most pressing concern of respondents to the UK’s Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) succession planning consultation. The FRC’s feedback statement on the consultation found that respondents believed that boards as a whole should be better informed about the link between diversity, strategy and business value. Diversity should be considered […]
Read More…as the UK’s Financial Reporting Council finalises auditor rules The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published final drafts of the latest UK corporate governance code and the associated guidance on audit committees so they will meet the requirements of forthcoming legislation on audit committees and auditor appointments. This forms part of the UK’s implementation of the EU’s […]
Read MorePersimmon seeks to blame proxy advisors for NED’s slim majority Construction firm, Persimmon, faced significant opposition in the vote to elect Nigel Mills as one their non-executive directors. There was a 47% vote against Mills’ appointment, due to independence concerns, at the company’s AGM last week, one of the slimmest margins for a director appointment for some […]
Read MoreThe Association of Member Nominated Trustees (AMNT) officially launched its new AGM voting toolkit this month (08-Dec-15). The 34 policy ‘Red Lines‘ (19 Governance, 10 Social and 5 Environmental) are designed to help pension trustees hold investee companies – and the fund managers who manage their investments in them – better to account when it […]
Read MoreThe UK government has decided against regulating for pension trustees in order to help them distinguish between financial and non-financial factors in their investments believing that guidance now exists to assist trustees. The announcement followed a government consultation on specific recommendations contained in a Law Commission report into the fiduciary duties of investment intermediaries that […]
Read MoreApril is probably not the ideal month to launch a consultation for anyone involved in corporate governance, nevertheless the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) issued a call for comment on its proposed best practice guidance for the proxy research industry. The consultation was scheduled to close on June 23rd, however following representation from stakeholders, the CSA has granted […]
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The trouble with proxy advisors…. Is that everyone loves to hate them but, investors at least, can’t actually do their jobs without them. If we didn’t exist we’d have to be invented. So, what’s to be done? Yes, true, that opening statement was an enormous over-simplification, but the time has come to properly upack all […]
Read MoreThe update of the corporate governance code for French listed companies published this month by AFEP/MEDEF has raised some telling questions about the governance of governance across the channel. Viewed against a backdrop of an agressive campaign on the part of French issuers seemingly aimed at censuring proxy research providers, the arrangements for the enforcement of the new code are […]
Read MoreESMA has now released its final report on ‘The Proxy Advisor Industry’. It’s key recommendation, after long deliberation, is that there is “no current market failure related to proxy advisors interaction with investors and issuers in the European Union (EU).” This finding is very welcome, but to those in the industry, it doesn’t really come as a surprise. Which […]
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