Corporate Governance
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The rule of law is not even worth 20 basis points. That's the ultimate message in a recent paper by Charles Calomiris, Eric Higgins, and Joseph Mason evaluating the proposed AG mortgage servicing settlement. Calomiris et al. estimate that the settlement will raise mortgage costs at least 20bps, and they think that's too much.
The Value of Rule of Law: 20 Basis Points - Credit Slips
Editor’s Note: The following post comes to us from Andreas M. Fleckner , Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. How did the Romans finance capital-intensive endeavors such as the erection of temples, the pavement of roads, or the trading of goods from foreign countries? This question has fascinated generations of classical readers and scholars. It is, however, also of interest to the corporate lawyer of today, because Ancient Rome helps us better understand the functions of corporate law and its role within the broader economic, social, political, and legal setting. What We Know About Ancient Rome
Corporate Law Lessons from Ancient Rome — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
GovernanceMetrics International
GMI Ratings’ Risk List contains companies receiving our lowest rating – “F.” Inclusion on The Risk List represents analysis covering an array of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and accounting issues…. As a global leader in corporate governance, GMI Ratings publishes two proprietary risk ratings on public companies: an Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) Rating, and an Accounting and Governance Risk (AGR) Rating.Modernising Company Law and Enhancing Corporate Governance in the European Union - A Plan to Move Forward
The Directorate General for Internal Market and Services is organising a public hearing on future priorities for the Action Plan on the Modernisation of Company Law and Corporate Governance on 3 May 2006 in Brussels. Antonio Borges , ECGI Chairman, will deliver the keynote address. The Directorate is also inviting stakeholders to submit their contributions by 31 March 2006 . See:
Corporate governance and the financial crisis
The financial crisis revealed severe shortcomings in corporate governance. When most needed, existing standards failed to provide the checks and balances that companies need in order to cultivate sound business practices. Towards better corporate governance In 2008, the OECD launched an ambitious action plan to develop a set of recommendations for improvements in priority areas such as remuneration, risk management, board practices and the exercise of shareholder rights. These recommendations also address how the implementation of already-agreed standards can be improved. This work was published in 3 phases:
Delaware Corporate Governance Blog
NEWARK, DE, Aug. 4, 2011 — Leaders from across the financial services industry, assembling at the University of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance recently, say a series of actions should be taken to ensure the integrity of the nation’s shareholder voting process. The actions in “The Report of Roundtable on Proxy Governance: Recommendations for Providing End-to-End Vote Confirmation” outline a series of what the Roundtable – comprised of a diverse group of industry representatives and experts on the proxy process – characterize as achievable steps to improve shareholder voting, including a methodology to provide investors specific confirmation of their vote and the transparency necessary to ensure voting accuracy.
Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance | Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics | University of Delaware
Established in 2000 in the University of Delaware's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics , the vision of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance is to propose progressive changes in corporate structure and management through education and interaction. The Center provides a forum for business leaders, members of corporate boards, the legal community, academics, practitioners, graduate and undergraduate students, and others interested in corporate governance issues to meet, interact, learn and teach. Using the fully endowed Edgar S. Woolard, Jr.The RAND Center for Corporate Ethics and Governance, or CCEG, is committed to improving public understanding of corporate ethics, law, and governance, and to identifying specific ways that businesses can operate ethically, legally, and profitably at the same time. The debate over the new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission whistleblower rules overshadows a deeper question for corporations and regulators—how best to reconcile strong compliance and internal reporting mechanisms with the incentives created by the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to report fraud directly to the SEC. The kerfuffle over Dodd-Frank conceals broad agreement that corporate fraud and misconduct are bad and that internal compliance mechanisms are intended to protect companies as well the community at large from bad behavior, write Michael Greenberg and Donna Boehme.
Center for Corporate Ethics and Governance | RAND
Editor’s Note: The following post comes to us from Kimberly Gladman , Director of Research and Risk Analytics at GovernanceMetrics International, and is based on the executive summary of GMI Ratings’ 2012 Women on Boards survey by Ms. Gladman and Michelle Lamb, available for download here . GMI Ratings’ 2012 Women on Boards survey includes data on over 4,300 companies in 45 countries around the globe. The results show incremental improvement in most measures of female board representation since our 2011 report.
The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants
Evaluation of existing incentives and development of new plans to better align management with shareholder interests, as well as new strategic initiatives and evolving performance measures. Review and devlopment of specific plans (salary programs, annual incentives, long-term incentives and deferred compensation) within a total compensation program framework. Review of the competitive quality and appropriateness of company short- (annual) and long-term (strategic) incentive plan(s) noting incentive plan structure, grant amounts, and recommendations for design and competitive alignment. Director's Compensation Analysis and Design Review and design of programs for compensating independent outside directors, as well as recommendations for change—particularly retainers, committee and meeting fees, and stock incentives.