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HLS Faculty & Senior Fellows
Program on Corporate Governance Advisory Board
- Peter Atkins
- David Bell
- Kerry E. Berchem
- Richard Brand
- Daniel Burch
- Paul Choi
- Jesse Cohn
- Arthur B. Crozier
- Renata J. Ferrari
- Andrew Freedman
- Ray Garcia
- Joseph Hall
- Jason M. Halper William P. Mills
- David Millstone
- Theodore Mirvis
- Philip Richter
- Elina Tetelbaum
- Sebastian Tiller
- Marc Trevino
- Steven J. Williams
Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Event Driven Securities Litigation
Social and environmental disasters, such as the #MeToo movement, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the opioid crisis, data privacy breaches with a vast number of companies such as Yahoo! Inc., Equifax, Inc., are well covered events in the news. These events impact peoples’ lives and many perceive a correlation between these events and civil litigation […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, ESG, Institutional Investors, Practitioner Publications, Securities Litigation & Enforcement
Tagged Class actions, COVID-19, Cybersecurity, ESG, Institutional Investors, Money laundering, Privacy, Proxy advisors, Rule 10b-5, Securities fraud, Securities litigation, Shareholder suits
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Weekly Roundup: December 11–17, 2020
SEC Adopts Amendments to Permit the Use of Electronic Signatures Posted by Kenneth M. Silverman and Zachary E. Freedman, Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP, on Friday, December 11, 2020 Tags: Disclosure, EDGAR, Filings, Financial reporting, Rule 302(b), SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation Board Considerations for an Uncertain 2021 Posted by Holly J. Gregory, Sidley Austin LLP, on Friday, December 11, 2020 Tags: Board composition, Board turnover, Boards of Directors, Corporate […]
Click here to read the complete postStatement on Adoption of Resource Extraction Disclosure Rules
Good morning. This is an open meeting of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on December 16, 2020, under the Government in the Sunshine Act. Today, we take another step in a winding, resource-consuming, decade-long journey to implement Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act. In 2010, Section 1504 added Section 13(q) to the Securities Exchange […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, International Corporate Governance & Regulation, Practitioner Publications, Regulators Materials, Securities Litigation & Enforcement, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Anti-corruption, Conflicts of interest, Disclosure, Dodd-Frank Act, ESG, FCPA, International governance, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation
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Statement by Commissioner Crenshaw on Resource Extraction
Today we find ourselves in a difficult situation. On one hand, we have a clear congressional mandate to promulgate a rule directing issuers to disclose certain resource extraction payments. On the other hand, we are bound by the requirements of the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”), which states that any rule we adopt today may not […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Practitioner Publications, Regulators Materials, Securities Litigation & Enforcement, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Anti-corruption, Conflicts of interest, Disclosure, Dodd-Frank Act, ESG, FCPA, International governance, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation
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Applying Discretion to Outstanding Incentive Awards in the COVID-19 Era
When COVID-19 first began impacting the US economy, many companies faced unclear financial forecasts and uncertainty on whether incentive plans would appropriately reward executives and employees for their contributions, pre– and post–COVID-19. Rather than overhaul in-flight incentive plans at a time of great uncertainty, many companies decided to take a “discuss now, act later” approach. […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Boards of Directors, ESG, Executive Compensation, Practitioner Publications, Securities Regulation
Tagged Boards of Directors, Compensation committees, Compensation disclosure, COVID-19, Disclosure, ESG, Executive Compensation, Glass Lewis, Human capital, Incentives, Institutional Investors, ISS, Proxy advisors, Securities regulation
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The Big Three and Corporate Carbon Emissions Around the World
In our study The Big Three and Corporate Carbon Emissions Around the World, forthcoming at Journal of Financial Economics, we analyze the role of the three largest asset managers in the world—BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Global Advisors—in reducing companies’ carbon emissions. The current interest in the Big Three responds to the unique combination of […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, ESG, Institutional Investors
Tagged BlackRock, Climate change, Environmental disclosure, ESG, Index funds, Institutional Investors, SSgA, Sustainability, Vanguard
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Demand for Better ESG Oversight and Disclosure in Canada
Two Notable ESG Developments in Canada Many Canadian public companies have been accused of being slow to disclose environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) factors that are material for their companies’ long term sustainability. In November, two notable developments occurred which should focus Canadian boards of directors and management on how directors oversee material ESG factors […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, ESG, Institutional Investors, International Corporate Governance & Regulation, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Canada, Disclosure, Environmental disclosure, ESG, Institutional Investors, International governance, ISS, Pension funds, Proxy advisors
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BlackRock Investment Stewardship Global Principles
The purpose of this post is to provide an overarching explanation of BlackRock’s approach globally to our responsibilities as a shareholder on behalf of our clients, our expectations of companies, and our commitments to clients in terms of our own governance and transparency. Introduction to BlackRock BlackRock’s purpose is to help more and more people […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, ESG, Institutional Investors, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Asset management, Board composition, Boards of Directors, Climate change, Diversity, Environmental disclosure, ESG, Index funds, Institutional Investors, Long-Term value, Stakeholders, Stewardship, Sustainability
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Is Conflicted Investment Advice Better than No Advice?
Studies of financial services industries have consistently found evidence of conflicted advice. Financial advisors, in a variety of settings, including mutual funds, insurance, and brokerage accounts, have been found to recommend higher-commission products. One implication is that the quality of financial advice that investors receive has room for improvement, perhaps through increased standards of care. […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research
Tagged Asset management, Broker-dealers, Conflicts of interest, Fund performance, Investment advisers, Mutual funds, Retirement plans
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