The rapidly growing focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters that marked 2020 continued to shape events for companies operating or based in the U.K. and Europe in 2021. Discussions of ESG are occurring at all levels, from the boardroom to investors to employees, and governments, regulators and companies are all being encouraged to take these matters into consideration...
As shareholders offer proposals seeking to change companies like Facebook and Lyft, they are hitting a wall put up by the executives who launched those companies...
ESG is a popular topic within the investment community. ISS Market Intelligence conducted interviews with 779 financial advisors between July 27th and August 11th, 2021 in order to learn more about advisor perception and behavior when it comes to ESG investing...
Most corporate directors I speak with these days say they face rapidly rising expectations. Overseeing succession, strategy and financial performance were the board’s traditional triad. But now, directors must master a host of new technology challenges as well as issues of corporate culture, talent, diversity and inclusion, climate and public trust...
It is no secret that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently ramped up its focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures...
The post-Covid world deals with extremely polarized social, economic and political elements, much more than before the pandemic. It seems that the virus has infected some of these elements, making them better than hoped for, while others have been thrown into their most shameful abysses...
Future-seeking leaders understand there are solid business reasons why attention to ESG is on the rise and that people, risk and capital issues are interconnected across the three factors of ESG (environment, social, governance), treating them accordingly to support purpose and drive performance...
In an important decision this week, the Delaware Court of Chancery permitted a Caremark duty-of-oversight claim to proceed against the directors of the Boeing Company. Stockholder plaintiffs sued Boeing’s board, seeking to recover costs and economic losses associated with the crash of two 737 MAX jetliners...
Her platinum-dyed hair is now a softer baby blonde, arranged in a natural wave. The red power lipstick is gone in favour of a fresh-faced nude. The message it sent was clear: arriving at court this week for Silicon Valley’s ‘Trial of the Century’ was a very different Elizabeth Holmes...
Dambisa Moyo wrote the book “How Boards Work” to explain what corporate board members do. She turns to her own personal board of directors for advice on how to do it better. The Zambian-born economist currently serves as a director for three companies: manufacturer 3M Co., energy giant Chevron Corp. and publisher Condé Nast. That assignment, she said, is different than it was just a decade ago. Board members not only have to handle activist fights, acquisitions and questions of succession...
Those who kept tabs on the markets during the summer could be forgiven for thinking activism forgot to take its habitual summer break. Several proxy fights are only now reaching a crescendo, including yesterday’s annual meeting at Box Inc (NYSE:BOX), or giving way to new contentious periods, including deals for Kansas City Southern and Monmouth Real Estate Investment...
When in doubt, go after corporate fat cats. Sensitive to criticism that existing revenue and cost measures won’t fully pay for their proposed $3.5 trillion spending plan , Congressional Democrats have their eyes on lavish executive compensation as a source of revenue. One proposal is an excise tax on companies that buy back a “significant” amount of their own stock. Another would target companies that pay bosses a high multiple of average employee compensation...
Publicly held corporations are facing increasing pressure from a variety of sources to disclose their diversity and pay equity data. Legislative and regulatory changes, activist shareholder groups, and public campaigns are beginning to have an impact...
Professor Marc Steinberg suggests ways in which the decades-old legal framework could be improved...
According to the Capital Asset Pricing Model, the goal of these investors should be to seek to reduce their exposure to “systematic risk” (which is defined as the risk that remains in any portfolio after it is fully diversified)...
Last summer, major public companies across the country pledged to increase diversity in their boardrooms, one of the actions taken after the murder of George Floyd in police custody. Corporate directors set goals, and some have begun to make progress, with investors, activists and others tracking their commitments on racial equity. But conspicuously absent is a discussion of diversity efforts at privately held companies...
Scientists often describe climate change with superlatives. Urgent. Dire. Existential. The superlatives are all bad. Encouragingly, financial economists are devoting more and more attention to the intersection of climate and finance...
Recently a purported shareholder of certain special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) initiated derivative lawsuits asserting that the SPACs are investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940, because proceeds from their initial public offerings are invested in short-term treasuries and qualifying money market funds...
According to the proposed Nasdaq board diversity and disclosure rules, listed companies must disclose board-level diversity data and will be required to have two diverse directors—or explain why they don’t meet this requirement...
In his remarks before the Principles for Responsible Investment “Climate and Global Financial Markets” webinar on July 28, 2021, SEC Chair Gary Gensler provided insights into what companies might expect from the SEC’s upcoming climate disclosure rules...
Attackers are exploiting systemic weaknesses in digital business systems in new and creative ways. Cybersecurity approaches need to recognize this shift and adapt to the catastrophic and compounding effects of the systemic risks now threatening businesses and critical infrastructure...
In the fifteen years since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act in the U.S., several institutional and regulatory changes have helped reshape boards of directors. During this time, other factors have emerged to place greater pressure on boards as well...
When the pandemic struck last year, many CEOs across the globe announced they’d cut their own salaries. Now that we’re 17 months into this crisis, it prompts the question: Did business leaders go through with this pledge?...
