In 2004, more than two years before Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ hit movie theatres nationwide, Cinergy, now part of Duke Energy dedicated its annual report to the topic of climate change. John Stowell, Duke’s vice president for environmental policy emphasizes that this Fortune 500 energy company has always let the world know what’s afoot. ‘It runs in our DNA to disclose as much as we possibly can and to let the sunshine in,’ he says.
Three ...
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The annual Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals national conference marks a changing of the guard when one board chairman steps aside to make way for the next. This year Bill Mostyn will move over for Lydia Beebe.
Both say the position of Society chairman is an interesting job to have for a host of reasons, some expected and some not. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect is that the role puts them in charge of the Society board after yea...
Analysts and investors often review insider transactions in an effort to gain insight into management’s bullish or bearish sentiment for the company as well as the sector or industry in which that company operates. The logic for reviewing these transactions is simple. Insiders are perceived as having a working knowledge of their company and its operations, and as such are expected to be able to better predict future earnings, cash flow, and by extension, the underl...
Now’s a busy time for corporate secretaries in the UK, or company secretaries as they’re known across the pond. For the first time in over 20 years UK company law has been overhauled, resulting in the Companies Act 2006, which was approved last year and is in the process of being implemented. All parts of the Act will be phased in by October 2008, with the majority expected to be in force by September 2007.
The Act has been eight years in the making and wi...
Just as scandals at Enron and Worldcom gave rise to the governance reforms of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, fraud at Japanese companies Seibu Railway, Kanebo and Livedoor have spurred Japan to strengthen regulations. And with so many parallels to US Sox, Japan’s internal control and financial reporting mandates, due to take effect in April 2008, have been tagged J-Sox.
Japan has a history of going easy on corporate fraud; white-collar criminals used to receive lit...
The SEC had to do a bit of fire-fighting in late spring as a Wall Street Journal story smoked out the topic of arbitration as a possible alternative to what now is often very expensive litigation – the strike suit, or class action lawsuit – usually brought claiming fraud on the market.
SEC chairman Christopher Cox confirmed his staff are looking at the possibility of allowing companies to seek shareholder agreement to the alternative settlement process. Bu...
It’s not a pretty picture. Especially not when you are looking at shareholder voting from your executive perch in Corporate America, with a bird’s eye view of the battlefield.
Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass) and 21 co-sponsors are pushing the ‘Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act’ that passed the House by a vote of 269 to 134. Frank and his supporters are stressing that this is an ‘advisory vote,’ by which he seems to imply that corp...
Earlier this spring the British consumer group Which? surprised corporate Europe by suing a sporting goods retailer on behalf of consumers who were overcharged for soccer jerseys several years ago.
The retailer, JJB Sports, had long since paid a fine for joining a cartel that fixed the price of soccer jerseys in 2000 and 2001. But those fines were paid to the government, and Which? wanted payment for individual consumers. So it became the first to sue under a ...
For decades, records managers toiled in relative obscurity, developing methods and processes to archive and retrieve the tons of paper their businesses spewed forth. Presently, as an e-discovery law addresses the proliferation of electronic media in everyday business, the importance of document management is gaining boardroom attention. Fortunately, new tools exist to manage data – both electronic and paper – and to mitigate associated risks.
The December ...
As a by-product of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act the NYSE added annual board self-assessment to its new listings rules. If handled skillfully and within the broader context of governance reform, the requirement could prove positive. The board self-assessment rule, which also applies to the audit, governance and compensation committees may help fuel a much-needed shift toward a more trustworthy corporate culture. For that to happen boards and regulators must address a number...
