Corporate governance - Vigil

When then-California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation’s first law requiring women on boards of publicly traded companies, he suggested it might not survive legal challenges.

Three years later, a judge will begin hearing evidence Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court that could undo the law credited with giving more women seats in boardrooms traditionally dominated by men. The California law has spurred other states to adopt or consider similar laws.

The chair and chief executive of Japan’s Mizuho have resigned after the government intervened following a long series of IT failures at the financial services conglomerate’s banking arm.

Chief executive Tatsufumi Sakai and chair Yasuhiro Sato will give up their positions in April next year, although Sato will remain on the board of directors until June, Mizuho said on Friday.

Unlike many founders, who exit the CEO job only to hang on as executive chairman or a director for years, Dorsey is leaving both roles. He wrote Monday that after handing the reins to Twitter Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal, he plans to serve on the board through “May-ish” to help with the transition. The company also named director Bret Taylor, who is Salesforce’s president, as board chair.

The UK’s competition regulator has forced Meta, formerly known as Facebook, to sell online image platform Giphy, the first time it has unwound a completed Big Tech deal.

The world is richer than it has ever been, but the way in which we create wealth has changed. Should we be using our wealth more productively? Jonathan Woetzel, Anu Madgavkar and Jan Mischke highlight their research findings. 

According to a theory that is gaining increasing support among academics and market participants (“portfolio primacy theory”), we should expect the “Big Three” (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street) and other index fund managers to push companies to reduce their climate externalities and thus mitigate the threat of climate change. In a new paper, The Limits of Portfolio Primacy, I question the implicit and explicit assumptions of this theory and show its significant limits. My analysis reveals that the theory’s optimistic take on the social role of index funds is grossly overstated, and suggests that climate policy should not rely on index fund stewardship as a substitute for traditional regulation.

As we move to the “beyond” phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, multinational companies are trying to understand their immediate or pending obligations in a number of areas. In 2020, there were a number of legislative and regulatory changes in the areas of corporate reporting deadlines and remote attendance at board and shareholders’ meetings.

Probably the most consequential meeting in modern corporate governance took place on June 28, 1999. What made it so noteworthy was that those present — the board members of Enron — utterly failed to appreciate its possible consequences.

Luigi Gubitosi pledged to make Telecom Italia a “normal company” that was capable of executing a recovery plan when in 2018 he became its fifth chief executive in six years.

Instead, his three-year anniversary in the post was marked by his resignation, having failed to deliver on this simple ambition and following a week of drama after the Italian telecoms group received a €33bn takeover offer from US private equity firm KKR.

Jack Dorsey is stepping down as chief executive of Twitter Inc. , the company he co-founded and has led since returning to the top spot in 2015.

Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer, will replace Mr. Dorsey as CEO, effective immediately, the company said Monday. 

THE NEWS, as the second anniversary of the pandemic nears, could be better. The emergence of a covid-19 variant, labelled Omicron, has sparked a wave of selling on financial markets, seemingly on concern that a new highly transmissible strain of the virus could set back economic recoveries worldwide. Yet even if Omicron proves manageable, 2022 will probably be an economically trying one, as countries are squeezed between two formidable economic forces: tighter American monetary policy and slower growth in China.

Despite the common belief that wealth is destroyed in three generations, dual-class shares (DCS) that perpetuate family and/or management control are supported by regulators, stock exchanges and corporate directors. Nearly one-quarter of U.S. IPOs in the first half of 2021 involved the dual-class structure, according to the Council of Institutional Investors.

Four of the five members on Evergy’s finance committee, tasked with recommending management and investment decisions to the board of directors, were selected by activist hedge funds that critics worry are asserting undue influence over the electric utility.

An investor proposal to Microsoft Corp. demanding greater disclosure on its handling of sexual harassment at the company was approved at the annual shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday.

The proposal requested an annual report that summarized the number of sexual harassment cases investigated and their resolution, as well as results of any independent investigation into Microsoft’s executives, including co-founder Bill Gates.

A board shake-up at top fashion retailer Inditex installed the founder’s daughter as chair and a lawyer with no fashion experience as CEO

An activist investor has called on commodities group Glencore to spin off its thermal coal business, divest non-core assets and improve corporate governance.

Bluebell Capital Partners, a London-based hedge fund that previously took on Danone and GlaxoSmithKline, wrote to the miner and trader earlier this month, urging it to “chart a new future” without coal, the world’s most polluting fossil fuel.

WestJet’s new top executive takes charge as the Calgary-based airline is ramping up after a lengthy slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harry Taylor, WestJet’s chief financial officer, becomes interim chief executive officer Monday at a crucial time for the country’s second-biggest airline – optimism, expectations and tensions have rarely been higher.

On November 4, 2021, ISS released for public comment its proposed benchmark policy changes for 2022. If adopted, the proposed policy changes would apply to shareholder meetings held on or after February 1, 2022. The proposed changes for U.S. companies relate to board diversity, board accountability for unequal voting rights, board accountability for climate disclosure by high GHG emitters and say-on-climate proposals.

Amazon.com Inc.’s recent settlement with California over employee Covid-19 notifications is the latest example of how pandemic-related workforce safety has emerged as a top environmental, social and governance concern for corporate boards.

The tech giant, following a state investigation, agreed to pay a $500,00 fine earlier this month and promptly notify warehouse workers and local health agencies about new Covid-19 cases.

Half of the companies that raised more than $1bn at initial public offerings this year are trading below their listing price, despite robust stock markets around the world.

Walmart Inc said on Monday longtime executive Brett Biggs will step down from his role as the chief financial officer of the world’s largest retailer next year.

Biggs, who has served as CFO since 2015, will remain in the role until a successor is named next year, Walmart said, adding that he will continue to represent the company as a board member of its fintech startup until January 2023.

The S&P 500 gained 1% in morning trading Monday. The index suffered its worst one-day percentage decline since February on Friday after South Africa identified a fast-spreading strain of the coronavirus, which the World Health Organization has named Omicron. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index rallied 1.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added about 120 points, or 0.4%.

Ted Rogers, the founder of Rogers Communications Inc., used to encourage his children to debate issues related to the family business over dinner.

But there was a twist: Partway through, both parties would have to switch sides and argue the opposite position. The exercise was intended to teach them how to understand the other person’s perspective, as well as to challenge their own assumptions, he explained.

On November 26th, 2021, TIM SpA ("Telecom Italia Group", "Group") announced that its Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and General Manager, Mr. Luigi Gubitosi (who remains a member of the Group's Board of Directors). Simultaneously, as a step of the CEO succession planning process, Mr. Pietro Labriola was appointed as General Manager of Telecom Italia Group