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This might be interesting to a few of you. >From Institute for Global Ethics @ http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/members/issue.tmpl?articleid=08040315304459. KWC
"Even
though U.S. and Canadian firms scored well overall, there are still five
companies from these two countries that received a global rating of 3.0 or
less, which GMI
considers well below average. This indicates that despite a strong legal and
regulatory framework, companies can still satisfy basic requirements but
represent a governance risk to shareholders. Sixteen companies received GMI's
lowest rating of 1.0; of these, ten were Japanese, two were French, two were
Dutch, and one Swiss and one American. "The data provided useful insights into differences
between industries and markets. The highest scoring industries globally were Utilities (average rating of 7.0), Energy (6.9),
and Insurance (6.8). The poorer performers were Construction (4.9), Autos (5.6), and Media (5.8). Not surprisingly, more regulated
industries tended to have better governance practices overall.... "European corporations outperform in the area of
broader stakeholder relations. In environmental, labor, and social matters,
European companies have far better practices and disclosure policies than U.S.
companies and consistently score better in this category. This is not
surprising given the greater attention to those issues by European investment
houses, governments, and communities. "Legislative and regulatory initiatives this past year
in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia have been designed to strengthen
corporate governance practices and produce greater shareholder protection, but
GMI's Chief Executive Officer, Gavin Anderson said, 'that while compliance with
new standards has produced improvement, there are still practices and patterns
of behavior at many companies that cause shareholder concern; among the myriad
of questionable practices we found are a chairman and president who were forced
to resign because of bid rigging, but have now been re-hired as advisors;
directors who sit on as many as fourteen public company boards as well as
several committees; one director who collects a $600,000 annual consulting fee
on top of his director fees, and one firm that does not designate either
executive directors or a CEO and thus regulations relating to directors
remuneration do not apply to them. What our ratings help determine is the
culture of accountability and integrity at companies. We know from a number of
studies that shareholders will pay a premium for companies with good corporate
governance.' "GMI's rating system incorporates more than 600 data
points across seven broad categories of analysis, including board accountability,
disclosure, executive compensation, shareholder rights, ownership base,
takeover provisions, and corporate behavior and social responsibility...."
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