Note: This special feature is sponsored by The Bank of New York
The stock transfer agency market continues to witness significant change. Fewer players, the introduction of new technology and evolving regulation present considerable challenges and opportunities, not only for those involved in the transfer agency business, but also for public corporations that rely on outside agents to maintain shareowner records and perform services that are quite visible to s...
Recent articles
As a number of recent high-profile legal actions have shown, managing corporate records and being able to accurately discover and recover documents are extremely important business activities. Getting them wrong could lead to serious penalties from government regulators and massive payouts in litigation and class action lawsuits. Indeed, managing the discovery of documents and records was hard enough before the widespread adoption of e-mail, electronic filings and th...
Is the corporate governance pendulum finally swinging back? Well, not quite. While the pace of reform has inevitably slowed, corporate governance reform still has plenty of momentum left. One example: the SEC’s new proposal on executive compensation disclosure. Unveiled in a January speech by SEC chairman Christopher Cox, it’s the most sweeping overhaul of executive compensation disclosure rules in more than a decade.
Clearly, critics have been clamoring f...
Along with all the corporate regulations put in place over the past five years, there’s also been a renewed focus on director liability. Indeed, it is generally accepted that company directors face a greater risk of civil prosecution than ever before. There are some in the legal community who suggest that there is no increased liability as a result of Sarbanes-Oxley, claiming instead that the real cause behind the rise in risk-related issues is actually the more i...
The avalanche of new regulations in post-Enron America may have spurred many corporate secretaries to send their directors back to school, but mastering the nuances of compliance isn’t the only aim of director education. The top-notch courses teach the nuts and bolts, of course, but they also hone directors’ strategic skills – a far more difficult feat to accomplish. ‘The whole focus is moving from the technical compliance side that came about f...
Mike Atkins, founder and CEO, Endexx
The transition from traditional paper-based board books to sophisticated board information management systems is definitely gaining pace, but companies need to be very careful about the sort of system they implement.
Flexibility and adaptability are key. Companies have had problems after implementing systems that, at the time, seemed cutting edge but did not allow for changes in the type and breadth of data b...
It’s a personal injury lawyer’s dream. A client has a heart attack after taking a new prescription medication and sues the manufacturer. Then the news reports start: allegations that the pharmaceutical company has been distancing itself from – and even suppressing – information linking the drug to heart problems.
Unfortunately for Merck shareholders, this scenario isn’t a dream but a nightmare come true. When Vioxx, the company’s COX-2 arthritis dr...
I’m getting my act together and taking it on the road,’ proclaimed the heroine of a hit musical in the 1970s. Senior managers and directors of some prominent companies are singing the same tune with respect to their corporate governance.
With new laws requiring more disclosure about governance policies and practices – along with increased demand from investors and analysts – listed companies are giving greater prominence to governance issues in their a...
With investor, regulator and media scrutiny of executive perks and expenses at its most intense levels ever, business travel has become an important issue. The widespread use of private company jets has decreased dramatically in recent years, as companies re-evaluate their use of private travel and look for more cost-effective and investor-friendly options.
This development has led to a number of changes, and one innovative solution has emerged from the commer...
Michael Becker, Director of global disclosure, BusinessWire
I think it is widely accepted that the use of technology and electronic filing is going to become the norm before too long. The SEC has been very vocal about the tagged data initiative – and XBRL in particular – and has asked companies like Microsoft and Oracle to build an XBRL facility into their offerings. XBRL is an important topic when talking about Edgar filings in 2006.
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