Corporate governance - Vigil

On March 24, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Omnicare, Inc., et al. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund et al., addressing when an issuer may be held liable for material misstatements or omissions under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 for statements of opinion in a registration statement.

TORONTO - It's a rare occurrence for the majority of a Canadian company's shareholders to vote against its executive compensation practices.

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On April 20, 2015, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a decision awarding $171 million in damages to the common unitholders of a limited partnership against its general partner in connection with a “dropdown” transaction. The decision is the latest in a series of decisions by the Chancery Court concerning the conduct of directors and advisers in conflict of interest and/or sale of the company transactions. See also In re Rural/Metro Corp. S’holders Litig., No. 6350-VCL (Del. Ch. Oct. 10, 2014);Chen v. Howard-Anderson, No. 5878-VCL (Del Ch. April 8, 2014); In re Orchard Enter., Inc. S’holder Litig., No. 7840-VCL (Del. Ch. Feb. 28, 2014). The decision yet again highlights areas that should be of concern to boards and their advisers in such transactions.

I recently published a study titled CEO Stock Ownership Policies—Rhetoric and Reality. This study is the first academic endeavor to analyze the efficacy and transparency of stock ownership policies (SOPs) in U.S. public firms. SOPs generally require managers to hold some of their firms’ stock for the long term. Although firms universally adopted these policies and promoted them as a key element in their mitigation of risk, no one has shown that such policies actually achieve the important goals that they have been established to achieve. My study shows that while SOPs are important in theory, they are paper tigers in practice. It also shows that firms camouflage the weakness of these policies in their public filings. Therefore I put forward a proposal to make SOPs transparent as a first step in improving their content. My findings have important implications for the ongoing policy debates on corporate governance and executive compensation.

Find out how to redesign board and director evaluations as a constructive performance management tool that helps good boards become great and great boards stay that way.

(Reuters) - Activist hedge funds, on the whole, do good work, but the best results come from those with the deepest pockets.A new study, looking at the performance of activists, who buy shares and then

28 April 2015—Ahead of the vote in European Parliament on 7 May 2015 on the Shareholder Rights

Italian Law No. 116 of 2014 introduced several rules designed to make corporate law more flexible, create incentives to corporations to go public, and might also allow controlling shareholders and directors to entrench themselves more effectively, limiting the risk of hostile acquisitions. The new rules, which became effective a few weeks ago, are both interesting and controversial. They can be seen as a response to the increase of regulatory competition in Europe, epitomized by the reincorporation of Chrysler-Fiat, which last year moved its registered seat from Italy to The Netherlands, thus becoming subject to Dutch law.

Institutional Shareholder Services said DuPont shareholders should elect Nelson Peltz and John Myers, two of the four nominees of Mr. Peltz’s Trian Fund Management, to the board.