Reflecting the materiality of corruption and risk to shareholders, and to mark International Anti-Corruption Day, (Monday, 9 Dec 2019) Minerva is announcing the inclusion of a new anti-corruption metric in its pre-AGM research reports. Alongside indicators for climate change, cyber-security and tax governance, the new corruption indicator and voting guidelines will help investors take an…
Category: corporate crime
How Corporate Lawbreakers Get a Leg Up at the Justice Department
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) revealed in August that top political appointees at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington, DC, overruled career federal prosecutors who sought to bring a felony charge against biotech giant Monsanto for illegally spraying a highly toxic pesticide in Hawaii. This happened after attorneys for Monsanto, including a former head…
For Facebook and Alphabet, Big-Ticket Fines Cause Limited Pain – WSJ
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow is quoted in this Wall Street Journal story about whether the penalties Facebook will be paying is enough to discourage further abuses. Financial penalties typically are meant to discourage further misbehavior or make victims whole, said Nell Minow, vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, a corporate-governance consulting firm for investors.“That second…
Jeffrey Epstein Moved Money Overseas in Transactions His Bank Flagged to U.S. – The New York Times
We think a solution here could be a Dram Shop Act-style law holding bankers responsible for the crimes committed by those who become “intoxicated” with its products. As Deutsche Bank officials this year scrambled to extricate themselves from a years-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier charged this month with sex trafficking, they uncovered…
Opioid-maker CEO convicted of racketeering for bribing doctors to prescribe addictive painkiller.
This is an enormously important development and underscores the crucial role that investors can play in making sure that incentive compensation and other elements of risk management are aligned with long-term, sustainable returns. A federal jury on Thursday found the top executives of pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics guilty of criminal racketeering for orchestrating an elaborate…
Elizabeth Warren: Corporate executives like those at Wells Fargo must face jail time for overseeing massive scams – The Washington Post
When a criminal on the street steals money from your wallet, they go to jail. When small-business owners cheat their customers, they go to jail. But when corporate executives at big companies oversee huge frauds that hurt tens of thousands of people, they often get to walk away with multimillion-dollar payouts.Too often, prosecutors don’t even…
The FTC’s Facebook fine should target Mark Zuckerberg and other executives.
On Slate, April Glaser writes about the prospect of a record-setting fine likely to be imposed on Facebook by the FTC. It raises the usual issue raised memorably by Edward, First Baron Thurlow: Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to…
Oil Company CEO Fails to Disclose “Loans” (Actually Bribes)
Oil company CEO John D. Schiller Jr. failed to disclose more than $10 million in personal loans he received while serving as chief executive officer of now-defunct Energy XXI. He sought the money in exchange for business contracts in 2014, when he was facing margin calls on a highly leveraged account secured by his company…
Disclose Bribes To Foreign Governments Disguised As Corporate Social Responsibility Investments?
Harry G. Broadman writes in Forbes: The U.S. House of Representatives, spurred on by the Trump Administration, is continuing its assault on a portion of a 2010 statute that requires certain U.S. businesses to disclose to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) payments made to foreign governments. In a perfect, corruption-free world of international…
Can Corporations Be Held to the Public Interest, or Even to the Law? by David A Ciepley :: SSRN
We support other options including replacement of the board (and debarment of directors from serving on any other boards), adoption of governance improvements including proxy access, majority vote requirements, and separation of CEO and Chair. We are not persuaded that the German system (which has so far shown no advantage over the US system) would…
ValueEdge Advisors 