Corporate governance - Vigil

Many companies are boosting the percentage of worker paychecks automatically diverted to 401(k) plans well above the standard 3%, in the latest attempt to transfer the burden of retirement costs to workers.

Investors in initial public offerings are taking a fresh look at companies coming to market and asking a new question: Can they make it through a tough stretch?

The New York appellate court overseeing cases arising in Manhattan last week clarified and limited the circumstances in which corporations are obligated to produce confidential attorney-client communications to stockholder plaintiffs in the context of derivative litigation. Nama Holdings, LLC v. Greenberg Traurig LLP, No. 14738-14739N, 2015 WL 5839311 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep’t. Oct. 8, 2015). The decision endorsed a multi-factored approach to determining when shareholder plaintiffs have established “good cause” for production of privileged communications.

Hedge funds posted their fourth consecutive month of losses with Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index down 0.54% in September while the MSCI World

A growing concern in governance circles is whether the desire to meet or beat quarterly earnings can be aligned with long-term business strategy. That disconnect that has even led some to propose doing away with quarterly earnings guidance as a strike against “short-termism.”

McDonald’s is close to deciding what, if anything, to do with its vast U.S. real-estate holdings, board member Miles D. White said in an interview.

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The National Association of Corporate Directors(NACD), the advocate for the profession of directorship, announced on October 5 the release of its 2015–2016 NACD Public Company Governance Survey, which compiles benchmarking data on governance trends and practices from more than 1,000 public company corporate directors and governance professionals. The survey is available at www.NACDonline.org/PublicSurvey.

On September 10 and 11, 2015, at the annual conference of the European Company and Financial Law Review at WU University in Vienna, the “European Model Company Act” (“EMCA”) made its debut to an audience of corporate law professors, practitioners and judges, introduced to society by its drafters (your correspondent must disclose that, while not involved in the drafting of the EMCA, he is one of the editors of the journal co-organizing the event, and was one of the discussants of the document).

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Oct 13, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Staples, Inc. SPLS, -1.31%announced today that the company’s Board of Directors has adopted a policy that limits severance benefits for senior executives.