At Home Group went public in 2016 and filed its first proxy statement in 2018. At that time ‘there was no color, no cover page, no bells or whistles, and we thought that was sufficient to cover our interests,’ says Meredith Hampton, vice president and associate general counsel of At Home. In 2019 the company faced its first say-on-pay vote and received only 49 percent support.
It was a wake-up call that something needed to change, and the response was two-fold: ...
Compliance Archive
Change Healthcare’s legal and compliance team has, in a relatively short period of time, proven itself to be adept at tackling major compliance and ethics challenges in a highly regulated industry.
The department began work in 2017 when the company was created in a joint venture between McKesson Corporation and the Blackstone Group. With general counsel Loretta Cecil at the helm, the team integrates all parts of the business that deal with governance, compliance, ...
One of the features of Visa’s highly impressive compliance work over the past year or so has been its efforts to integrate that work across the business. In the words of chief compliance officer Obiamaka Madubuko: ‘We think compliance is but one piece of the overall puzzle.’
That view has led Visa’s compliance team to beef up its partnerships with the controllership, audit and risk functions. The teams meet quarterly to look at the risks facing the industry,...
The SEC has adopted amendments to the business description, legal proceedings and risk factor disclosures required by reporting companies in annual and quarterly reports and registration statements. The amendments are intended to modernize disclosure requirements, including by eliminating certain duplicative requirements and improving the usability of filings for investors. The SEC expects the amendments to elicit disclosures that are tailored to each registrant’s partic...
– The Wall Street Journal reported that index compilers FTSE Russell and MSCI are reconsidering their approach to securities from companies the US government says help the Chinese military. President Donald Trump on November 12 signed an executive order barring Americans from investing in 31 Chinese companies that th...
– CNBC reported that SEC chair Jay Clayton announced he will step down at the end of the year. ‘Working alongside the incredibly talented and driven women and men of the SEC has been the highlight of my career,’ Clayton said in a statement. His term would have expired in June 2021.
SEC chairs traditionally step down when an administ...
Nov 06, 2020
– The Wall Street Journal noted that major US companies are asking the law firms they hire to explain how many diverse lawyers they employ and whether those attorneys are assigned meaningful work. Firms that don’t have good answers could lose out on bonuses or not get hired. ‘What gets done is what gets rewarded,’ said Shannon Klin...
High-profile fraud can have a massive impact on public companies, so the pressure is on for transparency across multiple geographies and jurisdictions. It’s a crucial part of the corporate secretary’s role.
Jarrod Simpson, CEO of governance services at Computershare, and Connor Kuratek, chief corporate counsel and assistant corporate secretary at Marsh & McLennan Companies, speak to Corporate Secretary about why entity management matters and outline the infl...
SEC member Hester Peirce has raised concerns about the potential regulatory liabilities facing chief compliance officers (CCOs) and has suggested the commission – and the compliance profession – develop new guidance.
In a speech earlier this month, Peirce said she shared fears some observers have raised that a growing ‘specter of personal liability’ may lead to some talented individuals giving up a career in compliance. She noted that the New York City Bar e...
– Reuters reported that, according to lawyers, lobbyists and policy experts, a decade-long Republican campaign to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) independence would backfire if Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidential election and gains the power to replace the agency’s director with a consumer champion. The Trump administration has relaxed enforcement and some rules and successfully...