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…
Category: corporate crime
More Trouble for Wells Fargo: Bank Improperly Kept a Pension Fund’s Fee Rebates – WSJ
Wells Fargo cannot seem to get it right. This is especially disturbing considering its many previous violations and promises that all its problems have been solved. And it is even more disturbing that in this case the relationship was not just with a customer, but a pension fund for whom it was acting in a…
AT&T, foreign corporations risk legal action for payments to Michael Cohen firm – MarketWatch
The payments made to the personal attorney of President Donald Trump raise questions as to whether these companies violated anti-bribery rules, experts in federal bribery laws say.The lawyer for the adult film star suing the president revealed that three companies, AT&T, Switzerland’s Novartis and Korea Aerospace Industries, made payments to Michael Cohen. Each company has…
Jes Staley, Thomas Middelhoff, and what Europe gets right about CEO accountability.
The FT today published a fascinating interview with Thomas Middelhoff, the former CEO of Bertelsmann, the German media giant. Middelhoff became a star during the dot-com boom—his $50 million investment in AOL became a $7 billion exit five years later—and then his star fell. Middelhoff ended up sentenced to three years in prison after being found…
The Trump Administration Is Letting Wells Fargo Get Away With Grand Theft Auto | The Nation
In January, Wells Fargo announced a one-time benefit from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of $3.89 billion. With the 40 percent cut in the corporate-income tax, Wells could write down the cost of its deferred tax liabilities—money it owed down the road to the government. So with the stroke of a pen, Donald Trump…
NY Times Editorial: Time to Treat White Collar Criminals Like…Criminals
There’s a novel thought: enforcing laws on white collar crime.Take the extensive money laundering Mr. Manafort is accused of undertaking with shell companies that hide ownership. How could he have expected to get away with it? Perhaps he saw what happened when one of the world’s largest banks, HSBC, helped launder billions of dollars in…
There Will Be No Spa Treatments for the New Members of Wells Fargo’s Board – TheStreet
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow is quoted on the unusual order by the Fed to “refresh” four board seats at Wells Fargo: To use the term refreshment is to suggest that this is just business as usual,” Nell Minow, vice chair of consultant ValueEdge Advisors, which counsels big investors on corporate governance, said in a…
Fed Slaps Unusual Penalty On Wells Fargo Following ‘Widespread Consumer Abuses’ : The Two-Way : NPR
Some unusual snark in a business story as NPR cites Wells Fargo’s assets as a claim, not a fact, and some unusual oversight by the Fed in ordering replacement of directors. ‘ In a rare move, the Federal Reserve announced Friday that it is restricting Wells Fargo’s growth and demanding the replacement of four board…
Citigroup Fined for Telling Clients to Buy When It Meant Sell – Bloomberg
Shouldn’t the word be “fraudulent” or at least “materially misleading” instead of just “inaccurate?” Citigroup Inc. will pay $11.5 million to resolve Financial Industry Regulatory Authority claims that a brokerage unit harmed retail customers by displaying inaccurate research ratings for hundreds of securities for nearly five years.<P<Citigroup Global Markets Inc. showed incorrect ratings — such…
FINRA fines J.P. Morgan for thousands of HR due diligence failures
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined J.P. Morgan Securities, LLC $1.25 million for failing to conduct proper background checks on 8,600 new employees from 2009-2017. J.P. Morgan’s due diligence failures involved 95 percent of the firm’s “non-registered associated persons.”
ValueEdge Advisors 