Corporate governance - Vigil

A former sales and marketing vice president at Rivian Automotive Inc. has sued the electric-vehicle startup, alleging that she was fired last month after telling a human-resources executive that she had been subjected to gender discrimination.

The complaint, filed Thursday ahead of Rivian’s hotly anticipated initial public offering, details concerns she allegedly raised internally, including that the company underpriced its vehicles, had manufacturing-quality issues and set unrealistic delivery targets.

As the world races toward recovery, boards of directors across companies of all sizes are trying to figure out what’s next. And an increasing part of that “next” relates to security. As a result, many boards find their relationship to cybersecurity has been changing.

Today, fundamentally, I see two types of boards: those that take a defensive posture related to their security and those—to borrow a sports term—who play offense. The defensive boards still view cybersecurity as a cost center and as a tactical element that is about uptime and reliability. The offensive boards, on the other hand, look at IT as a strategic component and one that will help transform their business. Offensively minded boards are looking to transform the IT function from a cost function to a profit center. These progressive boards, which are becoming increasingly common, are always seeking out ways to increase revenue while simultaneously reducing risk.

New strategic priorities, remote work, and social pressure are forcing boards to evolve in ways and speeds that they had not before. While ESG and diversity are gaining traction, directors disagree about the best ways to pursue these goals and the impact of reaching them. 

Per a recent BDO survey, the concerns of many directors remain all-too familiar to compliance departments. Results indicate where leaders plan to divert their resources in the near- and medium-term.

Après les chefs d’État, place aux financiers et aux négociateurs, qui à la COP26 de Glasgow ont commencé à discuter âprement mercredi des financements et moyens nécessaires pour lutter contre le réchauffement planétaire, sous le regard critique des militants du climat.

Research shows that executives at the highest-growth companies are strongly aligned on measuring marketing’s impact—making a powerful case for chief financial and marketing officers to join forces.

Analysts said the recurrent conflict and the uncertainty it creates make it harder for the CEO to do his job and is spooking investors by creating doubt as to whether Mr. Diess really has the support of VW’s main shareholders and its nonexecutive directors.

Climate change will profoundly affect the institutions that undergird modern society and will challenge almost every industry and economic sector. Under certain warming scenarios, our best available estimates suggest that climate change will impose tens of trillions of dollars in economic costs over the next 80 years.

In this unprecedented environment, companies and their investors will need to mitigate their potential losses by preparing for the physical and transition risks associated with climate change. Physical risks include, for example, the costs of repairing damaged facilities after extreme weather events, as well as the increased insurance premiums for the facility following repair. Transition risks are associated with the actions society takes in response to those physical risks—actions like taxing carbon emissions, developing green technology, or increasing demand for sustainable goods and services.

The Laurel Hill Advisory Group is pleased to share Laurel Hill's 7th annual Trends in Corporate Governance report, Canada’s most comprehensive and longest-running annual guide to the trends, risks and challenges affecting the Canadian corporate governance landscape. The report focuses on shareholder activism, shareholder proposals, environmental, social and governance (ESG), executive compensation, diversity, and several other related areas. As always, we strive to provide boards and management teams with practical guidance and insights to help them prepare for what lies ahead, whatever that may be, and to help facilitate conversations at the board, management and stakeholder levels.

The Federal Reserve approved plans to begin scaling back its bond-buying stimulus program this month and end it by June, a major step toward withdrawing its aggressive, pandemic-driven economic support amid a recent inflation surge.

The eurozone economy grew briskly in the summer, outpacing the larger U.S. and Chinese economies as the loosening of social restrictions and widespread vaccinations powered the region’s comeback from the Covid-19 pandemic, but supply-chain bottlenecks and rising prices are expected to hold growth back in the coming months.

Rule to make executives criminally liable for infractions undermines country’s appeal, business groups say

The relationship between central banks and financial markets is just like any other: You can’t learn to trust others if you don’t trust yourself.

François Dauphin, CEO of the Institute for governance, said investors can still sway companies despite dual-class shares.

”In most places, shareholders do have a say,” he said. “With the media around, at some point companies will have to talk to shareholders and justify why they’re going against most people’s opinions.”

One benefit of dual-class share structures is that they keep companies virtually immune to hostile takeovers, he said. This is particularly relevant in the tech field, which sees many acquisitions.

A survey from PwC of around 800 corporate directors found that 47% believe a fellow director on their board should be replaced, and of those almost one-fifth (18%) believe multiple directors should leave.

Today, Shearman & Sterling released its 19th annual Corporate Governance & Executive Compensation Survey, which finds that the boards of directors of the largest 100 U.S. companies have maintained their strong focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) and cybersecurity in 2021, following last year’s tumultuous events, while increasing overall emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues including climate change and energy transition, as well as human capital beyond DE&I.

In recent months the world economy has come to resemble a badly microwaved dinner: generally hot, but with some bits merely lukewarm and others positively scorching. Consumer prices globally are likely to rise by 4.8% this year, according to the imf, which would be the fastest increase since 2007. But price rises in emerging markets are running ahead of those in the rich world, and a few unfortunates, such as Argentina, Brazil and Turkey, are feeling particular pain. Their experience helps illustrate how and when inflation can get out of hand.

Many senior executives are struggling with an urgent talent crisis: the Great Resignation. The COVID-19 pandemic has induced waves of people to quit their jobs, seemingly in search of more meaning, more money, and more flexibility, among other wish-list items. The labor and skills shortage is now so severe that CEOs rank it as the No. 1 external issue they expect to influence or disrupt their business strategy within the next 12 months.

Novartis AG said it would sell its stake in Roche Holding AG back to its crosstown rival for $20.7 billion, bringing an end to the unusual, decadeslong entanglement of the two Swiss drug giants.

The deal announced Thursday hands Novartis a war chest for potential acquisitions, while for Roche, it removes a major competitor from its shareholder register and will boost earnings per share.

The Securities and Exchange Commission reversed a Trump-era policy and acted Wednesday to streamline the process for shareholders to propose resolutions on environmental or social issues during the coming proxy season.

The SEC rescinded guidance that since 2017 helped company managers to exclude some shareholder proposals from their annual proxy statements. The change reflects the agency’s emphasis on so-called shareholder democracy under Chairman Gary Gensler, a Democrat tapped by President Biden. It also comes as deadlines for proposals in the 2022 proxy season are approaching in coming weeks.

Governance Institute of Australia is delighted to launch its major thought leadership project for 2021, the Future of the board report. 

Based on a survey of 550 directors and executives as well as a high-level working group, the report outlines the challenges the board of the future is likely to face, what issues need to be on the radar now, and the skills and attributes board members will need to be effective. 

This is the third in Governance Institute’s ‘future’ series and follows the ‘Future of the governance professional’ and the ‘Future of the risk management professional’.  

World leaders from more than 100 countries, including the U.S., China and Brazil, agreed to a deal aimed at ending and then reversing deforestation by 2030, committing nearly $20 billion of public and private funds to protect and restore forests.

Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance Ltd. that owns social-media app TikTok, stepped down from his role as chairman of the Chinese technology giant, completing a leadership handover set in motion from May, people familiar with the matter said.

Private companies are under pressure to disclose more data relating to their performance on environmental, social, and governance issues.  

Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has asked fund managers that run ESG mandates to back up their claims. That message has been transmitted from regulators to asset managers, which in turn have been squeezing their portfolio companies to release details about their ESG practices.