Sky Blog
On December 9, 2002, UAL Corporation, which operated as United Airlines, filed for bankruptcy protection, leading to huge losses by UAL’s creditors. Those creditors included UAL’s pensioners when UAL’s pension plans were terminated and taken over by the Pension Benefit …
In the U.S., shareholder proposal filings have historically played an important role in advancing corporate governance and in highlighting key risks related to environmental and social issues. Some of the major shifts in governance practices during the past two decades …
There is substantial debate about the role of outside (i.e., non-employee) directors in enhancing corporate governance. Most of the research on this topic has focused on public corporations, which are required by law to have adequate representation of outside directors …
Analyzing corporate governance at companies in emerging markets can be really tough. A combination of differing regulatory standards, disclosure requirements, market norms, local investor preferences, and more all collude to make the evaluation of governance structures difficult. Giving credit where …
On February 6, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance released Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations 116.11 and 133.11, which address the disclosure of self-identified diversity characteristics with respect to board members and nominees under Items 401 …
Everyone knows executive pay is rising. None of us can agree about why. Our forthcoming study in The Accounting Review, “Matching Premiums in the Executive Labor Market,” points to one reason—executives are being compensated for the risk they bear …
In a long-awaited but widely-expected development, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) has issued a new consultation paper[1] proposing that Heads of Legal do not need to be designated as Senior Managers under the Senior Managers Regime (“SMR”). Ever …
In recent decades, economies have become bound together through globalization, a phenomenon that integrates societies and creates business opportunities but also challenges tax policies. The amount of taxes corporations pay is a heatedly debated topic among policy makers, academics, and …
Dissatisfaction with corporations is near the top of the political agenda for both the left and for the right.
The Accountable Capitalism Act, a bill that would make all corporations with $1 billion or more of annual revenue subject to …
Innovation is the primary engine of growth in economies at the technological frontier, and a path to higher profits and growth for individual companies, as the likes of Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon make clear. CEOs play a crucial role …
Over the past three decades, shareholder proposals have transformed the corporate landscape in the U.S. by spurring the adoption of governance best practices. Annual director elections, majority vote rules for director elections, shareholder approval for poison pills, and proxy access …
It was reported on January 27 that Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (“Nissan”) had received an inquiry from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), regarding alleged disclosure violations involving payments to its former Chairman, Carlos Ghosn. The reported …
A key policy of UK financial regulation since the financial crisis has been the ring-fencing of retail banks into separate and independently operated entities, so-called “ring-fenced bodies” (RFBs), distinct from entities that carry on other, and especially investment, banking activities …
In recent times, the simmering feud between the church of the one share-one-vote and the heretic believers in shares with unequal voting rights has boiled over, particularly in the U.S.
The arguments pro and con this type of capital structure …
A vast literature studies the effects of antitakeover provisions (ATPs) on firm value. The academic consensus is that ATPs harm firm value because they partly insulate managers from the threat of takeover, and that view has become very influential. Prominent …
Appearances can be very deceiving. Case in point: The high-level summary numbers of voting results over the last 19 years seem to indicate that little has changed regarding proxy voting behavior among investors owning U.S. companies. A simple analysis of …
In a recent study, we examine whether a director’s “diversity” explains two employment outcomes: being retained on the board and being promoted to board leadership positions. We define diversity as the director’s dissimilarity to the other members of the board …
Regardless of industry, size or performance, no company should consider itself immune from hedge fund activism. No company is too large, too popular, too new or too successful. Even companies that are respected industry leaders and have outperformed the market …
There is consensus among economists that legal protections for investor rights have a positive impact on corporate value. The intuition is that investors are willing to pay a higher price for a firm’s stock when there are laws in place …
What is the opportunity cost of private benefits of control? Using dollar cost of corporate giving to measure private benefits of control, we show in a recent study that (i) the consumption of private benefits creates a managerial aversion to …