Activists Urge Kroger to Remove Trump Appointee from the Board

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that a DC-based activist group is objecting to the Kroger board’s selection of former Trump cabinet member Elaine Chao as a director: A Washington, D.C.-based progressive watchdog organization is paying for a mobile billboard this week in Cincinnati that urges the Kroger Co. to drop former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao from its board…

Trump, the Coup, and Corporate Ethics – Radical Compliance

Corporate America might be hoping that the difficult issues raised by President Trump’s attempted coup this week and the remaining days of his term will somehow pass them by. Too bad.  What Trump has unleashed isn’t something businesses will be able to avoid. In several practical ways, dealing with Trump and his minions — both…

Nell Minow on ERISA, the Trump Executive Order, and ESG

VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow writes on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation about the Labor Department’s review of ERISA fiduciaries and ESG under the Executive Order issued last month by President Trump. She wrote: ERISA, the 1974 law that governs pension funds, recognizes that the third parties who manage…

Trump’s Push to Ease Wall Street Rules Hindered by Missteps

President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to loosen Wall Street’s leash, but some of regulators’ most meaningful efforts to revamp post-crisis constraints on big banks are running into problems. Take the Volcker Rule, which restricts banks from making risky market bets with their own money. Under Trump, federal agencies sprinted to rewrite it, issuing an…

Trump and Warren are Both Wrong

Jesse Fried says that Senator Warren and President Trump both want to weaken shareholder oversight, Senator Warren with her legislative proposal and President Trump in asking the SEC to review elimination of quarterly reporting: In the absence of any solid evidence that shareholders harm firms, the case for weakening investors has been based on myths,…

‘Eye-popping’ payouts for CEOs follow Trump’s tax cuts – POLITICO

Some of the biggest winners from President Donald Trump’s new tax law are corporate executives who have reaped gains as their companies buy back a record amount of stock, a practice that rewards shareholders by boosting the value of existing shares.A POLITICO review of data disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows the executives,…

Why corporate America [foolishly] loves Donald Trump – The Economist

When it comes to gauging the full costs of Mr Trump, America Inc is being short-sighted and sloppy…. The trouble is that companies are often poor at assessing nebulous risks, and CEOs’ overall view of the environment is fallible. During the Obama years corporate America was convinced it was under siege when in fact, judged…

Major Rollback of Dodd-Frank Signed into Law

President Trump has signed the biggest rollback of bank rules since the financial crisis in a major repeal of provisions of the Dodd-Frank legislation. The new law eases restrictions on all but the largest banks, raising the threshold to $250 billion from $50 billion under which banks are deemed too important to the financial system…