Archive
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USAA general counsel to expand role
Jason Klein to become chief corporate governance officer Corporate Secretary’s research report, ‘Stakeholder capitalism and the board: Taking on a new mindset’, reveals findings from a survey conducted among in-house governance professionals such as general counsel, corporate secretaries and their teams. Their responses provide helpful insight into, among other things, how boards assign oversight of and discuss stakeholder capitalism issues, investor questions about those issues, the extent of formal stakeholder capitalism strategies and whether companies link executive compensation to corporate purpose. The findings in this report are based on an online survey conducted between December 2021 and February 2022. Click…
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AbbVie legal chief to retire
Laura Schumacher has been with the company and its predecessor for more than three decades Jason Klein, general counsel and senior vice president at USAA, is to expand his role to become the company’s chief corporate governance officer. He will succeed Amy Cook, the current chief corporate governance officer, who will retire from USAA next year. Klein will continue to report to USAA chief legal officer Bob Johnson, who joined the company in 2020 from Truist Financial Corporation, which was created by a merger between BB&T Corporation and SunTrust Banks. Klein joined USAA in August 2020 after spending 17 years…
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Stakeholder capitalism and the board: Taking on a new mindset
Laura Schumacher, chief legal officer and vice chair of external affairs with NYSE-listed AbbVie, will retire from the company following a transition period, marking the end of a 32-year career at the company and its predecessor Abbott Laboratories. Perry Siatis, who is at present senior vice president and deputy general counsel, will take on the role of executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. Before AbbVie’s separation from Abbott, Schumacher spent 22 years at Abbott in a number of leadership positions. Following the separation, she built and led the new company’s global legal team and all externally facing functions…
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Are your ESG disclosures vulnerable to claims of ‘greenwashing’?
Amid growing enforcement and litigation pressure, Helene Banks and Brock Bosson discuss how companies can guard against claims their ESG disclosures are greenwashing As corporations continuously seek to improve and set ever-higher standards for themselves, the hashtag-friendly term ‘greenwashing’ has become especially popular – and reputationally toxic when attributed to corporate efforts. Greenwashing generally is understood to be an accusation that a company is making false, unsubstantiated or exaggerated statements or marketing claims about its environmental or other ESG efforts, especially when the company is expending more effort marketing those ESG attributes than minimizing the company’s environmental impact. But the…
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Climate-related disclosures increasing but more transparency needed, TCFD says
Only four out of eight industries assessed meet average disclosure levels The number of companies that disclose information compliant with the TCFD framework has increased but their disclosure levels still fail to meet recommendations, according to the 2022 Status Report published by the task force. The new research shows that in 2017-2021, the average number of companies reporting TCFD-aligned information across the 11 recommended disclosures increased by 26 percentage points. The number of companies reporting on climate-related risks or opportunities was up by 33 percentage points in 2021. But despite an uplift in the number of companies adopting the TCFD…
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The week in GRC: SEC reopens comment periods after tech issue and FSB urges climate standard setters to avoid hardwired differences
This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported that many companies are delaying acquisitions because a combination of economic factors such as high inflation, rising interest rates and market volatility is lowering the confidence of buyers and sellers. During the first nine months of 2022, the value of global M&A deals announced by companies dropped 34 percent to $2.81 tn, according to Refinitiv. That’s the largest year-over-year decline since 2009, when M&A declined amid the global financial crisis by 42 percent compared with 2008 levels, Refinitiv said. Many companies and…
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Under Armour names successor to legal chief
John Stanton to retire at end of 2022 after 16 years with the company NYSE-listed Under Armour has appointed Mehri Shadman as chief legal officer (CLO) and corporate secretary, effective October 24. She succeeds John Stanton, the company’s current CLO, who has decided to retire at the end of 2022 after 16 years with Under Armour. Shadman has worked at Under Armour for nine years and is at present deputy general counsel for corporate and risk and assistant corporate secretary. In that role she oversees the corporate, global ethics and compliance, data privacy and enterprise risk management functions. Before joining…
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Nominees announced for Corporate Governance Awards 2022
Winners to be announced at special in-person event in New York on November 9 The Shareholder Rights Group has responded to critics of SEC plans to update the grounds on which companies may be allowed to exclude shareholder proposals. The commission in July proposed amendments to Rule 14a-8, which provides several bases on which companies can apply for no-action relief if they omit a proposal from their proxy statement. The proposed amendments would revise three of these bases for exclusion. The proposed changes would revise the following grounds for exclusion: Substantial implementation – if approved, the changes would specify that…
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Shareholder Rights Group responds to critics of proposed 14a-8 changes
Sanford Lewis says SEC’s proposed changes ‘clearer than current rules of decision’ Corporate Secretary is delighted to announce the short-listed nominees for its 15th Corporate Governance Awards. The winners, selected by an independent panel of judges, will be revealed at a gala in-person ceremony on Wednesday, November 9 in New York. The ceremony – the first Corporate Governance Awards event to take place in person since the pandemic – will cap two days of live events hosted by Corporate Secretary: The M&A Forum on Tuesday, November 8, and the Corporate Secretary Forum on Wednesday, November 9. The awards celebrate outstanding…
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State Street names compliance chief
Yvette Hollingsworth Clark was previously head of compliance for Google’s consumer trust business State Street Corporation has appointed Yvette Hollingsworth Clark as executive vice president and global chief compliance officer (CCO). In her new role, Hollingsworth Clark reports to Brad Hu, executive vice president and global head of risk for State Street. She is also accountable to the examining and audit committee of State Street’s board. Hu joined the company at the start of this year. He was previously chief risk officer at Citigroup. As CCO, Hollingsworth Clark oversees compliance activities for State Street globally, including designing and implementing structures…