Investors to FASB: We Need Tax Transparency Investors with over $2.9T in assets under management called on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to prioritize public country-by-country tax reporting as part of FASB’s future standard-setting agenda. Signatories represented a broad coalition of asset managers, public pension funds, labor funds, international investors, foundations, and religious investors. […]
Netflix Approach to Governance: Genuine Transparency with the Board (download) by David F. Larcker and Brian Tayan takes a look at one aspect of corporate governance at Netflix and finds “a radically different approach to information sharing” by management with the Board. Shareholders are largely left out of the equation. Netflix Approach to Governance: Management Netflix Approach […]
A Public Citizen report shows mutual funds hold back political spending transparency through their proxy voting behavior. Fully 64% of political spending disclosure shareholder proposals would have passed with majority support if major mutual funds owning more than 5% had voted in favor of them in 2016. The report, released during a telephone press conference last week, […]
Do not make the same mistake as LL Bean. The last thing I want is to turn CorpGov.net into another social media outlet on Donald Trump. However, the advice offered today by Bruce Freed, president of the Center for Political Accountability (CPA), is something public company boards should be discussing as they try to stay on […]
Good corporate governance means quicker, more frequent disclosures to the stock market. Or does it? The evidence varies by country, and in our research we wanted to check the relationship. We used cross-country data from 23 OECD countries, firms with financial years ending between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2008. We looked at company […]
Five years ago today the US Supreme Court held that corporations could spend unlimited funds on election campaigns in their decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Last night I joined about 100 people a local showing of Pay 2 Play: Democracy’s High Stakes. I highly recommend it. See the film with a group and […]
In a global first, a group of institutional asset owners and managers are jointly calling for comprehensive transparency and disclosure to be adopted as core principles in reform of the international taxation system to be put before the G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane this weekend. The group including the £150B UK Local Authority Pension Fund […]
NYSE Euronext, NIRI (National Investor Relations Institute) and the Society (Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals) submitted a joint petition to the SEC requesting the SEC to reduce the time frame under which investors are required to report their holdings from 45 business days after the end of the quarter to two business days after […]
Robert A.G. Monks has a new site and blog. It looks great. Read his Response to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report: Part 1. Monks once again identifies owners as the appropriate party to monitor corporate management. He notes that Greenspan was not only mistaken in his belief that corporations will preserve and enhance their own value, but […]
With all the criticism lately of public pension funds it is good to see increasing transparency on several fronts. CalPERS, for example, recently announced they will essentially be posting travel claims. (CalPERS Boosts Transparency: Will Post Travel Expense Claims) Now, CalSTRS has stepped up from live audio streaming to live video streaming and archiving of […]
24/7 Wall St. reviewed the performance of 50 companies Audit Integrity rated “Least Transparent” in the month of June, including three with“Insider Trading.” Among the largest companies in the list, the average return was a negative 8.6% in June compared to a drop of 7.75% for the Russell 1000. Smaller companies fared worse, with an […]
Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma have edited a new volume, Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. Although the book is focused on civil governments, I found lessons here for corporate governance as well. For example, the chapter by Douglas Schuler discussed online deliberation, including the work of e-Liberate, which developed an online version […]