Peter Galuszka is a Virginia-based journalist with more than three decades of experience. He spent 15 years at BusinessWeek where he was twice Moscow Bureau Chief and International News Editor in New York. He has also worked at other national and regional business magazines and at newspapers. Now a...
While gaining among corporations in general, "Say on Pay" support is losing favor among financial companies, according to a new report by The Corporate Library. The shareholder watchdog group notes that "Say on Pay" lost support among eight major financial firms during this proxy season. The list...
The reach for non-U.S. director and executive talent continues. More companies based in the U.S or elsewhere are diversifying their C-suites and boardrooms with non-Americans and are looking increasingly to India and China for fresh blood. That's the trend noted by BusinessWeek and America.gov. ...
After six years of survival, could a constitutional technicality derail the far-reaching Sarbanes-Oxley Act? At issue is a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. that challenges the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The PCAOB was set up by the Sarbanes-Oxley...
Wall Street is coming on strong for Barack Obama in this year's presidential campaign donation race. Big investment firms such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan favor Obama over John McCain by margins of roughly four or five to one. So states a recent report by Chief...
Do you think the nation's top securities regulator goes overboard in enforcement? One of its outgoing commissioners thinks it does. U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission member Paul Atkins recently co-wrote an article claiming that enforcement issues are so egregious that the SEC needs to set up an...
Generally speaking, finding talent for a business is a bit easier than finding capital or innovative ideas. But if you do business in China the opposite is true, according to McKinsey Quarterly in a new report. McKinsey researchers Kevin Lane and Florian Pollner note that China's typically...
BNET columnist Jessica Stillman penned an intriguing post last week calling a new Stanford study noting the dubious claims of shareholder advisory services that they can predict future performance of companies. The report, issued by the Rock Center for Corporate Governance, run jointly by Stanford law and graduate business schools,...
In the first two installments of this three-part series, I talked about the birth of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and about how it spread fear and loathing among business leaders in the U.S. Flash forward to today. Having taken effect nearly six years ago, SOX has settled in. Was it...
By 2005, it was clear that Sarbanes-Oxley wasn't exactly popular. SOX was being blamed for everything from putting companies out of business to forcing foreign firms to seek capital in non-U.S. markets. The most serious and believable criticisms surrounded SOX's notorious Section 404 which called for internal...
A while back I posted on "Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything," a new book written by three experts from the Boston Consulting Group, Harold L. Sirkin, James W. Hemerling and Arindam K. Bhattacharya. A smart discourse on how local companies in developing economies, such...
We're coming up on the sixth anniversary of the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which still stirs strong emotions. Indeed, when President George W. Bush signed it into law on July 30, 2002, he called it "the most far-reaching" business regulation reform since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. ...
The push for a new international accounting system is picking up traction. As the Corner Office reported April 8, moves to accept International Financial Reporting Standards IFRS instead of the GAAP Generally Accepted Accounting Principles could well happen in the U.S., the last GAAP hold out. Now...
Maybe I've missed it, but I have been waiting for CNN pundit Lou Dobbs to weigh in on the foreign invasion of an American icon -- Budweiser beer. After finding its initial $65 a share bid for Anheuser-Busch Companies rebuffed, InBev SA, the Belgian-Brazilian brewer of such...
The weird tale of Samuel Israel III began on July 27, 2005 when he sent a letter to investors in his $450 million hedge fund called Bayou Management. The fund was shutting down but they'd get their money back. But when investors called his Stamford, CT office, they got a...
Decentralizing management is a good way to spark innovation and train corporate leaders, according to William Weldon, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, maker of Band-Aids and Tylenol. Weldon made the comments at a Wharton School leadership conference and a video of his comments is available online. J&J,...
It soon will be moment-of-truth time for Christopher Cox, chairman of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, regarding one of the most fundamental issues in shareholder rights. So far, Cox has dodged the issue which has been festering for five years. It involves allowing shareholders to propose...
Let's say your board is being challenged by dissident shareholders to bring in directors on a minority slate. Who should pay for it? That's question that the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has asked the Delaware Supreme Court to answer. The SEC is doing so because about...
Saying goodbye can be a hard thing to do. But it is a necessary part of the creative process and is good management, according to a new McKinsey Quarterly study. Too often, executives stick to what was once thought a bold and brilliant idea. But when the...
Angelo Mozilo fits central casting's version of the modern CEO. Always tanned, his white hair contrasting against dark business suits, the co-founder and chief executive of Countrywide Financial has been powerful and domineering. Yet, his behavior and that of his board has led to what corporate governance experts believe is...
Remember the scene in the movie "M*A*S*H*" when Painless the dentist decides to commit suicide by downing the poisonous "Black Capsule?" Following a Last Supper-style scene with his cronies and some tender nursing care, however, Painless comes back to life. Well, that's sort of what what Harvard...
Peter Galuszka is a Virginia-based journalist with more than three decades of experience. He spent 15 years at BusinessWeek where he was twice Moscow Bureau Chief and International News Editor in New York. He has also worked at other national and regional business magazines and at newspapers. Now a...
