We recently reported that Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) released its 2018 Americas Proxy Voting Guidelines Updates (the Policy Update), which, among other things, establishes modified guidelines for determining whether a director serving on the board of multiple
On October 5, 2017, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released Staff Notice 58-309 (Staff Notice) reporting findings of a review carried out by various Canadian securities regulators of disclosure regarding women on boards and in executive
As discussed in our earlier blog post, the Kingsdale Advisors’ (Kingsdale) annual Proxy Season Review for 2017 identified ESG trends as one of several issues on the horizon for public companies. Kingsdale noted that heightened scrutiny from
As a result of the increasing and ever-evolving responsibilities falling on the shoulders of boards of directors, the traditional three key committee model (covering audit and financial reporting, executive compensation, and director nominations and board succession planning) can be inadequate.
In a move likely to have significant impacts on corporate governance, a group of institutional investors managing upwards of US $17 trillion has announced the formation of the Investor Stewardship Group (the Group). The Group has adopted a framework
In a corporate directors survey (the Survey) entitled “The swinging pendulum: Board governance in the age of shareholder empowerment”, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) presents current trends in investor influence and their impact on governance practices of
Recent research on the adoption of majority voting rules provides some insight on how corporate governance reforms are adopted and change company behaviour, and suggests that reforms may have the greatest impact on firms that are late to adopt them.
Prior to 2008, it was not uncommon for a bank to assign its risk oversight responsibilities to the audit committee of its board of directors, or in some cases, to even divide those tasks between a number of other committees.
On November 6, 2014, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) released updates to its Canadian proxy voting guidelines for the 2015 proxy season. The voting guidelines are effective for meetings held on or after February 1, 2015. The following is a
A significant issue regarding the corporate governance of public companies arises from questions regarding the optimal role of shareholders in navigating a company’s direction. The one share, one vote view of the world posits that shareholder democracy is best achieved