Boards & Shareholders

The IFRS Foundation has appointed Richard Thorpe as its new director for trustee activities. He replaces David Loweth, who will step down from his full-time position to take up a part-time role looking at developments in corporate reporting and their relevance to IFRS standards.

The notion persists that long-tenured directors are too familiar with the organization to provide useful, objective leadership. But as CW columnist Richard Steinberg points out, there is definitely something to be said for deep experience and expertise.

It was all going so well. Institutional investors had made numerous efforts to comply with new SEC rules monitoring proxy advisers, but fresh legislation—HR 5311—might drive a permanent wedge between corporate boards and proxy advisers. More from columnists Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik.

The VW emissions-testing scandal has reached the embattled automaker’s C-Suite. It was only a matter of time. Tom Fox reports.

On the heels of Jim DeLoach’s “Six Principles for Improving Board Reporting,” Richard Steinberg offers four more principles regarding board risk oversight to ensure effective risk management, establish who is responsible for it, put board reporting in its proper context, and set channels of communication.

In a perfect world, chief compliance officers should not be an afterthought for the board of directors, but rather a strategic partner.  Joe Mont recaps a CW 2016 panel discussion on strategies CCOs can take to gain the ear, if not mindshare, of directors.

A California federal judge yesterday sentenced the former chief executive officer of the California Public Employees Retirement System to four years and six months in prison for engaging in a bribery and corruption scheme.

Last month, Rick Steinberg looked at myths around corporate governance, including accusations levied by some institutional investors and others. Here he looks at more such myths, with analysis and insight into which claims are on point—and which are not—along with how some accusers appear to be seeking to serve their own self-interests.

Walmart’s board of directors successfully moved to dismiss a shareholder FCPA-related derivative claim, in which shareholders accused the directors of breaching their fiduciary duties in connection with a massive bribery and corruption scandal at the retail giant’s Mexico operations. Jaclyn Jaeger reports.