Archive
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Support continues to fall for climate-focused resolutions, Morningstar finds
‘Public companies can only benefit from getting ahead of the curve on their reporting’ Jianyi Zhang has retired as Nasdaq-listed Canadian Solar’s chief legal officer (CLO), chief compliance officer (CCO) and corporate secretary. Zhang joined the company in 2016 as senior vice president, general counsel and CCO. He had previously been a senior adviser to Jingtian & Gongcheng Law Firm, Runbo Law Firm, East Associates Law Firm and East & Concord Partners in Beijing, consecutively. Before that, he was a senior assistant general counsel at Walmart Stores and a partner at law firm Troutman Sanders. At Canadian Solar, Kah Locke…
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The week in GRC: Republican state AGs warn companies on diversity policies and manufacturers’ group wants shareholder proposal curbs
This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – CNBC reported that the National Association of Manufacturers, in a letter to the House Financial Services Committee, criticized recent rules and regulatory changes by the SEC and asked lawmakers to curb proxy voting and limit the shareholder proposals companies need to disclose. The lobbying group said recent reforms from the SEC are harmful to manufacturers and are ‘putting their ability to finance their growth in jeopardy,’ according to the letter. Committee chair Rep Patrick McHenry, R-North Carolina, said earlier this year that ESG has become the ‘latest tool’…
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SIG SAUER recruits top lawyer and compliance chief
Laurence Grayer was previously general counsel and CCO with Creative Associates International Firearms and ammunition company SIG SAUER has recruited Laurence Grayer as executive vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer (CCO). According to his LinkedIn profile, Grayer previously spent six years as general counsel, vice president and CCO at Creative Associates International. Before that he was of counsel with Protorae Law. Grayer previously spent more than eight years in a variety of legal roles at DynCorp International, most recently as general counsel, senior vice president and corporate secretary. Earlier in his career, he was associate counsel and later…
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IFRS Foundation takes over climate-related disclosure monitoring from TCFD
Transfer consolidates sustainability reporting standards The IFRS Foundation will take over responsibility for the monitoring of the progress on companies’ climate-related disclosures from the TCFD next year at the request of the Financial Stability Board (FSB). The transfer was announced this week after the foundation officially launched the inaugural global International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) Standards, IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, on June 26. The FSB established the TCFD in 2015 to develop a set of voluntary, consistent disclosure recommendations for use by firms in providing information to investors, lenders and insurance underwriters about their climate-related financial risks. But the…
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Former Tejon Ranch general counsel to rejoin company
Michael Houston was previously at the company from 2016 until 2021 Michael Houston is rejoining NYSE-listed Tejon Ranch Company as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, effective August 21. Houston previously held those positions at the company from 2016 until 2021. He left Tejon Ranch in 2021 to join the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) where he was chief counsel and director of legal services for the metropolitan planning agency, which represents six counties, 191 cities and nearly 19 mn residents in the region. Before his initial spell at Tejon Ranch, Houston was city attorney for the…
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Alphabet’s Verily appoints general counsel
Laura O’Donnell joins health tech company from McKesson Douglas Barnard, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of NYSE-listed CF Industries Holdings, has announced that he will retire from the company on January 12, 2024. In the meantime, he becomes executive vice president for corporate development and legal adviser, reporting to president and CEO Tony Will. His primary responsibility over the coming months will be obtaining Federal Trade Commission clearance for the recently announced acquisition of Incitec Pivot’s Waggaman, Louisiana ammonia facility, helping with other strategic initiatives and business development support. In response to that move, CF Industries has promoted…
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CF Industries general counsel to retire
Company outlines succession plan Alphabet health technology company Verily has appointed Laura O’Donnell as general counsel. O’Donnell joins Verily from McKesson where she had been the company’s first independent chief compliance officer (CCO) since 2019, a role in which she reported to the board’s compliance committee. According to Verily, she led important initiatives including McKesson’s Covid-19 executive response team and its Drug Supply Chain Security Act enterprise governance strategies. Before her time with McKesson, O’Donnell held multiple roles in GE Healthcare’s legal department, including as general counsel of GE Healthcare and chief counsel for global affairs, according to the LinkedIn…
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SEC’s Uyeda suggests 14a-8 process reforms
Commissioner worried about growing number of shareholder proposals reaching a vote at AGMs SEC commissioner Mark Uyeda has raised concerns about the process through which the agency’s staff decides whether to allow companies to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy statements and has suggested potential changes. Speaking at the Society for Corporate Governance’s national conference in June, Uyeda cited figures as showing an 18 percent increase in the number of shareholder proposals submitted to companies between 2021 and 2023 and a 40 percent increase, to 629, in the number of proposals that reached a vote over the same period. Uyeda…
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Governance Matters podcast: Reviewing the 2023 proxy season and making a success of entity management
In the latest episode, we hear analysis of declining support for ESG resolutions and get advice on making the best of your company’s entity management program The 2023 proxy season was another hectic period for governance teams, but it also came with some welcome indicators for companies in terms of the pressures they are facing from investors. The headline has been an overall decline in average support for ESG-related shareholder proposals for the second year in a row, even though the number of such resolutions getting to a vote has stayed broadly the same. In the latest episode of Corporate…
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Bambee hires former Poshmark general counsel
Evan Ferl began his legal career at NASA Human resources (HR) technology company Bambee has hired as its new general counsel and chief strategy officer. Most recently, Ferl was general counsel and vice president for strategy and corporate development at Poshmark during the company’s IPO. Before that, he spent more than a decade in senior in-house legal roles at HR and consumer technology companies such as VMware, SumTotal Systems (later acquired by CornerStone OnDemand) and Hired. He began his career working in the office of the chief counsel at NASA. Allan Jones, Bambee’s founder and CEO, says in a statement:…
