The U.K. government is joining up the dots on the need for trust to build a strong commercial ecosystem for business. It intends to broaden the remit of audit, introduce new reporting obligations on businesses, and break the dominance of the Big Four accounting firms by requiring the use of smaller “challenger” firms by large…
Category: international corporate governance
Happy SFDR reporting day! The EU Action Plan isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got, and we must back it vigorously
Responsible Investor’s Hugh Wheelan writes: [T]he tipping points for the huge ESG shift we are witnessing are the regulatory drivers of The EU Green Deal and Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth. They are two blockbuster regional policy drivers that will have global ‘translation effects’ for all companies and investors; public or private, amplified rapidly…
Danone board ousts ESG Advocate Emmanuel Faber as chief and chairman | Financial Times
Danone’s board of directors has decided to replace Emmanuel Faber as chief executive and chairman, bowing to pressure from activist investors and blowing up a two-week-old compromise designed to have him remain as chairman….Activist investors attacked Danone for what they cast as its chronic underperformance compared with larger rival Nestlé, and publicly called for Faber’s…
Climate Governance Initiative | World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum has developed a set of Climate Governance Principles for boards of directors, with a view to enabling non-executive directors (NEDs)to gain climate awareness and skills, embed climate considerations into board decision-making, and understand and act upon the risks and opportunities that the climate emergency poses to the long-term resilience and business…
UN report puts climate change at heart of insurance risk assessment
A report produced by the United Nations (UN) in collaboration with 22 major insurance firms has suggested that the insurance industry needs to adopt an integrated approach in order to manage future climate change risk. The final report of the UN’s Environment Programme’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative, which aims to pilot recommendations from the…
Beyond Covid: risk and resilience among governance trends for 2021
VEA Vice Chair is quoted in a Board Agenda story about governance priorities in the Biden administration and new 50-50 Senate: If there is one country likely to see an expansion of corporate governance activity in 2021 it is the US, with the upcoming inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The Trump years saw…
Lagarde’s ECB won’t let investors delay addressing climate risk
The European Central Bank has a warning for investors: Deal with the financial risks from climate change soon or we’ll do it for you. Under President Christine Lagarde, who started the job a year ago pledging to give the institution a bigger role in fighting global warming, the ECB is re-evaluating how dispassionate it should…
German cabinet approves tougher oversight after Wirecard scandal | Reuters
The German cabinet passed a package of reforms to financial and accounting rules on Wednesday aimed at avoiding another Wirecard scandal amid criticism from opposition lawmakers who say the government’s measures do not go far enough. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the co-governing Social Democrats (SPD) agreed to extend the powers of the BaFin watchdog…
Co-Determinative Corporate Governance
A system of shared corporate governance between shareholders and workers, codetermination has been mostly ignored within the U.S. corporate governance literature. When it has made an appearance, it has largely served as a foil for shareholder primacy and an example of corporate deviance. However, over the last twenty years—and especially in the last five—empirical research…
Bringing shareholder voting into the 21st Century – The UK Association of Member Nominated Trustees
A report, authored by Professor Iain Clacher reaches three main conclusions: First, the barriers presented to split voting in pooled funds are not insurmountable, especially as some fund managers have already been doing this for some clients. Put simply, asset owners’ policies could be implemented by fund managers if there was the will to do…
