Corporate Governance & Risk Management Blog

Robert Adamson, Executive Director
Centre for Corporate Governance and Risk Management

The hedge fund Mason Capital (US) and Canadian Telus Corporation crossed swords this year when the Telus Board of Directors’ tried to consolidate voting and non-voting class shares (which was anticipated and authorized in the corporate articles).  These issues may seem technical but go to [...]

By Robert Adamson
CICA Fellow in Corporate Governance and Risk Management
Executive Director, Centre for Corporate Governance and Risk Management

     Publish What you Pay (PWYP) is a campaign to promote more stringent regulations for mining and other extractive companies in the disclosure of payments made to governments. There are already new disclosure rules in section 1504 of [...]

By Robert Adamson
Executive Director, Centre for Corporate Governance and Risk Management

As corporate governance continues to be an area of focus for most companies, regardless of whether they are involved in global operations, there are many questions and issues that firms still struggle with:  What is good corporate governance and why is it so important? [...]

There have been many efforts over the last 40 years to create a national securities regulator in Canada. According to the advocates of a national regulator, the current politicized system of provincial securities fiefdoms threatens the long-term future of capital markets and makes those markets less sophisticated and more prone to peculiar political interests. According [...]

New research by scholars from the University of South California has provided some support for those who are skeptical of the role that good corporate governance plays in improving corporate performance. The study by David Erkens, Mingyi Hung and Pedro Matos followed the performance of 296 financial institutions with assets of more than $10 billion [...]

There is no one lesson  that has been learned from the financial crisis. Instead, the crisis has reiterated long-standing principles for boards and financial companies:  the importance for boards in exercising prudence and judgement, the  importance of diversification, the fleeting nature of liquidity, the importance of understanding the complex risks and products of modern global [...]

It seems the list of things for corporate boards to consider during their meetings continues to get longer and more detailed. There continues to be an expansion of the types of issues that boards are expected to explore in order to fulfill both their legal duties as well as the expectations of shareholders.

CCGRM Corporate Governance Working Paper

August 2009

By Robert Adamson, Executive Director, Centre for Corporate Governance and Risk Management

Executive Summary: The purpose of this CCGRM Corporate Governance Working Paper is to outline some of the current corporate governance challenges facing Viet Nam, highlight the changes in corporate governance policy and practice that are currently underway, and to [...]

It is highly likely that both hedge funds and private equity firms will be subject to new rules and regulations, and perhaps different rules depending on whether there is any serious and successful attempt to coordinate rules across and between jurisdictions.

In Europe, for example,  hedge funds and private equity have become the focus of the [...]

Executive compensation has long been a controversial and divisive issue. It is obviously even moreso in our current economic malaise in which companies are vying for their survival while executives walk away with multimillion dollar compensation packages. It seems even more egregious and objectionable when the executives that are walking away with extraordinary bonuses and [...]