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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
Weekly Roundup: December 10–16, 2021
No More Old Boys’ Club: Institutional Investors’ Fiduciary Duty to Advance Board Gender Diversity Posted by Anat Alon-Beck (Case Western Reserve Universty), Michal Agmon-Gonnen (Tel Aviv University) and Darren Rosenblum (McGill University), on Friday, December 10, 2021 Tags: Board composition, Boards of Directors, Director qualifications, Disclosure, Diversity, ESG, Fiduciary duties, Institutional Investors Remarks by Chair Gensler Before the Healthy Markets Association Conference Posted by […]
Click here to read the complete postStatement by Chair Gensler on Buybacks Disclosure Proposal
Today, the Commission is considering enhancing the disclosures around share buybacks. I support these amendments because, if adopted, they would increase transparency into the market. Share buybacks have become a significant component of how public issuers return capital to shareholders. I think we can lessen the information asymmetries between issuers and investors through the timeliness […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Practitioner Publications, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Capital allocation, Disclosure, Repurchases, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation, Shareholder value
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Statement by Commissioner Peirce on Buybacks Disclosure Proposal
Thank you, Chair Gensler. Both dividends and share repurchases are ways companies return cash to shareholders. Yet, say “dividend,” and nobody gets angry, but say “share buyback,” and the rage boils over. Today’s proposal channels some of that rage against repurchases in a way that only a regulator can—through painfully granular, unnecessarily frequent disclosure obligations. […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Capital allocation, Disclosure, Repurchases, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation
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Statement by Commissioner Roisman on Buybacks Disclosure Proposal
Good morning. Thank you to the staff who worked on this proposal. I know you spent many hours not only working on this rulemaking, but talking with my team and me about our various questions. I truly appreciate all of your dedication and efforts. That said, I have very mixed feelings about the proposal before […]
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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Practitioner Publications, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Capital allocation, Disclosure, Repurchases, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation, Shareholder value
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Remarks by Commissioner Crenshaw on Climate Pledges
Thank you Daniella [Gibbs Léger], I am thrilled to be here today. And I want to commend the Center for American Progress and the Sierra Club for the hard work and dedication behind the important research that is being recognized today [Dec. 14, 2021]. Climate change is a crisis that poses an existential threat to […]
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Posted in ESG, Practitioner Publications, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Climate change, Environmental disclosure, ESG, Institutional Investors, Say on climate, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation, Sustainability
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The Corporate Director’s Guide to ESG
For many, the term ESG (environmental, social, governance), conjures notions of investors chasing feel-good stories of sustainability, diversity, and ethics. But given the heightened interests from various stakeholders, corporate directors know ESG is much more. Far from being just window dressing, making organizations appear socially responsible to the outside world, there are real risks at […]
Click here to read the complete postSEC Adopts Mandatory Universal Proxy in Contested Elections
In early January 2015, hedge fund activist Trian launched a closely followed proxy fight against DuPont, claiming that the company had underperformed and that it should, among other things, be broken up into three parts. DuPont responded that, through implementation of its own strategic plan, it had delivered total shareholder return and cumulative capital return […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors, Corporate Elections & Voting, Institutional Investors, Practitioner Publications, Securities Regulation
Tagged Boards of Directors, Institutional Investors, Proxy contests, Proxy voting, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities regulation, Shareholder voting, Universal proxy ballots
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Statement by Commissioners Peirce and Roisman on Chair Gensler’s Regulatory Agenda
While Chair Gary Gensler’s newly released regulatory agenda is ambitious in scope, we are disappointed with its content. It fails to include any items intended to facilitate capital formation and misses opportunities to foster fair, orderly, and efficient markets and further investor protection. Instead the agenda is brimming with plans to redo recently completed rules, […]
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Posted in Practitioner Publications, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged Capital formation, Cryptocurrency, Investor protection, Proxy advisors, SEC, SEC rulemaking, Securities enforcement, Securities regulation, Shareholder proposals
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ESG: Hyperboles and Reality
ESG has risen from an obscure and niche concept to a widely used term around the world. When I started working in this area, most (if not all) of my students at Harvard Business School had no idea what ESG meant. Nowadays, they use the term ESG in the classroom taking as a given that […]
Click here to read the complete postKeeping Pace with the Climate Transition
Climate change has already become one of the most prominent line items on the world’s agenda. But we believe that its impact on the global macroeconomy is just beginning and increasing in pace. In our view, investors should think of the transition to a low-carbon economy as a multi-dimensional shock event, spread out over time, […]
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Posted in ESG, Institutional Investors, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Asset management, Climate change, Engagement, ESG, Index funds, Institutional Investors, Stewardship
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