Corporate Governance Links

We've scoured the Web for sites on corporate governance and related subjects. Please recommend additional links and let us know if you find dead links listed below (contact: James McRitchie). If you'd like to add a link from your site to ours, please link-to-us. Links to publications on corporate governance can be found on our Stakeholders page. Additional resources are on our NetWork page.

Ratings (Corporate Governance)

Warning: Not all ratings firms are created equally, nor do they use the same criteria for rating companies. Fannie Mae, for example, got a gold star (nine out of ten) when rated by Standard & Poors in late 2002 but scored below average by GovernanceMetrics. International. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) won't even give them a score because, as a government sponsored entity, Fannie Mae isn't required to abide by US securities laws. S&P takes a different approach from the other two since they rate at a company's invitation only. While this provides them with access to nonpublic information, I believe they also agree not to release certain ratings without the company's consent.

Board Analyst. "Research shows that companies identified as High Risk by Board Analyst are nearly twice as likely to encounter problems as companies identified as Low Risk." Among factors considered are: Board Composition, CEO Compensation, Shareholder Responsiveness, Accounting, Strategic Decisionmaking, Litigation & Regulatory Problems and Takeover Defenses.
CoreRatings, European provider of independent ratings reports on corporate governance, the environmental impact, employment practices and impact on the societies.
CRISIL Ltd. (India) Governance and Value Creation Ratings reviews management capabilities, transparency, influence of major stakeholders, board composition and effectiveness.
Deminor Rating helps to bridge the corporate governance expectation gap between investors and listed companies. First European corporate governance rating agency.
GovernanceMetrics International. Bills itself as the "world’s first global corporate governance ratings agency." Weighs more than 600 variables, including environmental, workplace safety, and earnings management.
ICRA Limited. Provides a Corporate Governance Ratings (CGR) service for the Indian Market.
ISS: Corporate Governance Quotient. ISS calculates CGQs for 6,000 companies. To generate a CGQ, ISS analysts gather data on more than 61 criteria in the following categories: board, charter/bylaws, compensation, state of incorporation, executive and director compensation, qualitative factors, stock ownership, and director education. Launched in June 2002, information is primarily gathered from SEC filings.
Moody's Investors Service is overhauling the corporate governance assessment in its existing ratings. The firm hired Kenneth Bertsch to serve as director of corporate governance, a position he held at TIAA-CREF.
Open Compliance and Ethics Group, a nonprofit focused on providing universal guidelines (benchmarks) for integrated compliance and ethics programs.
Standard & Poor's: Governance Services offers a range of products and services to evaluate the corporate governance standards of individual companies around the world. The Corporate Governance Score assesses companies' corporate governance performance for investors. The Corporate Governance Evaluation Service confidentially diagnoses corporate governance for companies. The Corporate Governance Customized Research tailors research for investors, companies, regulators, or other organizations.