Archive
-
Pinterest recruits new legal leader
Wanji Walcott has previously worked at Discover Financial Services Nasdaq has raised concerns about – and suggested changes to – the SEC’s plan 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. SEC chair Gary Gensler said in a statement at the time: ‘I believe these proposed amendments would provide a clearer framework for…
-
Nasdaq queries SEC plan on shareholder proposal exclusions
Exchange concerned move is ‘part of a broader trend to narrow the bases for excluding shareholder proposals’ Pinterest has appointed Wanji Walcott as chief legal officer (CLO), effective November 14. She will report to CEO Bill Ready. Walcott will be responsible for legal, compliance and public policy and will join Pinterest from Discover Financial Services, where she has been executive vice president, CLO and general counsel since 2019. During her time with Discover, she has managed its legal and government relations teams, co-led the company’s innovation initiative and worked with the board on strategy and risk-management protocol. Before Discover, Walcott…
-
The week in GRC: NYC comptroller presses BlackRock on climate commitments and senator questions ESG raters
This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported that, according to people familiar with the matter, Instacart doesn’t intend to raise much capital in its IPO and instead plans to have most of the listing come from the sale of employees’ shares. In meetings with potential investors, Instacart executives said they didn’t plan to issue many new shares in the IPO, the people said. The sale of mostly employee shares could help Instacart retain talent. Listed shares could also make Instacart more attractive to new employees than start-ups that have…
-
Mind your own business: Balancing stakeholder demands in politically fraught times
As corporates are increasingly called upon to weigh in on political issues, we examine the investor view on talking politics – and find some firms starting to take a step back and return the focus to shareholder value The pressure for companies to have a public view on everything from George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement to ‘don’t say gay’ legislation, voting rights and the overturning ofRoe vs Wadehas been increasing in recent years. Dr Tara Van Ho, senior lecturer at the University of Essex School of Law in the UK, talks about ‘watershed moments’ that have…
-
HP names legal chief
Julie Jacobs to join next month from Yahoo HP has recruited Julie Jacobs as its new chief legal officer and general counsel, according to a LinkedIn post from HP president and CEO Enrique Lores. Lores writes that Jacobs will start work with the tech company next month. She joins HP from Yahoo where she has been senior executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. According to her LinkedIn profile, Jacobs spent 16 years at AOL in several in-house legal roles including, from 2010 to 2017, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. She led the integration of the…
-
Former VW attorney joins US Chamber of Commerce
David Detweiler was previously general counsel of Volkswagen Group of America Spirits and food company MGP Ingredients has hired Curtis Landherr as its chief legal officer, effective October 17. Most recently, Landherr was senior vice president and general counsel at Duluth, Minnesota-based Cirrus Aircraft, where he created and expanded the legal function starting in 2014. Before his time with Cirrus Aircraft, Landherr was vice president and general counsel for the North American subsidiaries of Netherlands-based CSM (now called Corbion), which produces green biochemicals and private-label bakery products and ingredients. Before that, he was assistant general counsel at Garmin, which creates…
-
Spirits producer MGP appoints legal chief
Curtis Landherr to join next month having previously worked at Cirrus Aircraft A new report on ESG activism in 2022 from Insightia notes that, in the space of a year, support for ESG activism proposals has begun to dip. Separately, the aviation and airlines industry has jumped to the top of the list as the industry most vulnerable to activism in Q2 2022, according to new research from FTI Consulting. ‘The second edition of our special report on ESG activism arrives in a surprisingly different environment from the first, even though just over a year has passed,’ Josh Black, editor-in-chief…
-
Activism research: ESG support dips while aviation faces risks
Two new reports focus on areas of activism risk for companies The US Chamber of Commerce has recruited David Detweiler as general counsel. Detweiler was previously executive vice president and general counsel of Volkswagen Group of America and a member of Electrify America’s board. At Volkswagen, he oversaw legal operations including corporate governance, product regulatory issues, product litigation, environmental and emissions matters, human resources, privacy and data governance matters. In addition, he was responsible for the US aspects of Volkswagen’s diesel settlement and the US Department of Justice monitorship that concluded in 2020. Detweiler joined Volkswagen in 2016 from the…
-
The week in GRC: SEC’s Gensler defends climate proposal and DoJ targets executive pay in corporate prosecutions
This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web Energy Recovery was the winner in the best ESG communications category at Corporate Secretary and sister publication IR Magazine’s inaugural ESG Integration Awards. The winners, selected by an independent panel of judges, were revealed following the ESG Integration Forum – Summer in New York. After it published its first ESG report in 2020, Energy Recovery’s top goal was to engage a large portion of its stakeholder base to help produce its first full materiality assessment. In addition, the company set out to develop a clear set of ESG goals…
-
ESG Integration Awards: Energy Recovery on getting its ESG message across
Explaining an ESG plan to stakeholders – Reuters reported that Zendesk investor Light Street Capital Management reaffirmed its decision to vote against the software company’s $10.2 bn go-private deal with investment firms Hellman & Friedman and Permira. In a letter to Zendesk’s board, Light Street also asked it to postpone a vote on the deal, which is due September 19. Zendesk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. – In other activism news, Reuters reported that Daniel Loeb backed off from pushing Walt Disney Co to spin off ESPN, saying he has a ‘better understanding’ of the sports…