Corporate governance - Vigil

A very recent article in the UK publication The Guardian, entitled “Stuxnet-style code signing of malware becomes darknet cottage industry,” [1] raises the specter of bad actors purchasing digital code signatures, enabling their malicious code to be viewed as “trusted” by most operating systems and computers. Two recent high profile hacks utilized false or stolen signatures: Stuxnet, the code used to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, allegedly jointly developed by America and Israel, and the Sony hack which was allegedly perpetrated by the government of North Korea. Both of these instances involve sovereign states, with effectively unlimited resources.

Today, [November 18, 2015], the Commission considers proposing much-needed enhancements to the regulatory regime for alternative trading systems (“ATSs”) that trade national market system (“NMS”) stocks. I will support these proposals because they could go a long way toward helping market participants make informed decisions as they attempt to navigate the byzantine structure of today’s equity markets.

L’Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) publie un état des lieux des pratiques en matière de stratégie et communication actionnariale des sociétés cotées. Première étude de cet ordre menée par les services de l’AMF, elle dresse le bilan et les bonnes pratiques étudiées auprès de 80 émetteurs. Fort de ces enseignements, le régulateur complète par ailleurs sa doctrine avec la publication d’une position et d’une recommandation.

There is no aspect of merger and acquisitions litigation more pervasive or significant than the disclosure settlement. It is the mechanism by which stockholder claims are conclusively resolved for approximately half of all public company acquisitions greater than $100 million. [1] For that half of major acquisitions, the contracting parties and their directors, officers, affiliates, and advisors receive a court-approved global release of known and unknown claims relating to the merger in exchange for supplemental disclosures to stockholders prior to the stockholder vote. [2] The supplemental disclosures have no impact on stockholder approval of the merger. Nevertheless, in almost every such case, class counsel for the stockholder plaintiff receives a court-approved six-figure fee award for having conferred a benefit on the stockholder class.

Activist investor Sandell AssetManagement Corp said its nominees were not elected to EthanAllen Interiors Inc's board, citing preliminary votingresults at the company's 2015 annual meeting.