Nouvelles diverses | Page 12

« Amnesty International: Shareholder Activist » publié sur Human Rights Now Blog offre un bel exemple d’un activisme à vocation sociétalement responsable. Qui a dit que l’activisme était nécessairement court-termiste ? Reste tout de même à savoir si cet activisme fait avancer les choses…

This week, Amnesty International USA joined the New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, in filing a shareholder resolution at Chevron Corporation. The resolution asks the company to appoint a board member with expertise in the impact on communities and the environment of its oil and gas extraction operations.

For over a decade, Amnesty International USA has retained a small amount of Chevron stock and other corporations for the purpose of engaging in shareholder activism. Owning this stock allows Amnesty International USA to join with other shareholders in filing resolutions and speaking out at corporate annual shareholder meetings. Our shareholder activism has given us the opportunity to advocate for human rights with companies, including ExxonMobil, Yahoo, and Dow Chemical.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

M. Le Frapper publie une excellente synthèse du nouveau dispositif français en matière de dénonciation dans l’article suivant publié sur LinkedIn : « Loi Sapin 2 et les lanceurs d’alertes (« whistleblowers ») » (3 décembre 2016).

Le volet alerte interne de la Loi Sapin 2 est fortement susceptible d’entraîner à long terme une profonde révolution culturelle des organisations avec le renforcement de la protection des lanceurs d’alerte.

Toutefois, au-delà des bonnes intentions du législateur, des interrogations subsistent : les sanctions applicables aux personnes faisant obstacle à l’alerte ou décidant de représailles seront-elles appliquées en pratique et donc dissuasives ?

J’ai extrait de cet article les points suivants :

La protection du lanceur d’alerte repose sur plusieurs conditions cumulatives :

• Agir de bonne foi,
• Une motivation désintéressée,
• La révélation ou le signalement, soit d’un crime ou délit soit d’une “menace ou d’un préjudice graves pour l’intérêt général” (par exemple, pour l’environnement, la santé publique ou la sécurité publique),
• Avoir une connaissance personnelle des faits ou menaces signalés,
• Le respect de la procédure graduée organisant le signalement de l’alerte.

La procédure d’alerte doit être graduée :

• En premier lieu, le lanceur d’alerte doit s’adresser à son supérieur hiérarchique, direct ou indirect, ou au référent désigné par son employeur (dans l’hypothèse d’un dispositif d’alerte interne );
• Deuxièmement, en l’absence de « diligences (…) dans un délai raisonnable », le lanceur d’alerte a l’option de s’adresser à l’autorité administrative ou judiciaire, au Défenseur des droits ou encore aux ordres professionnels;
• En dernier ressort, l’alerte peut être rendue publique, à savoir être communiquée aux média, par son auteur, si l’alerte n’a pas été traitée dans un délai de trois mois.
• Par exception à l’escalade graduée, l’alerte peut être soit adressée aux personnes visées dans la deuxième étape soit rendue publique “en cas de danger grave et imminent ou en présence d’un risque de dommages irréversibles».

Pour plus de détails, bonne lecture de cet article !

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Ivan Tchotourian

Article inquiétant d’Olivier Pinaud ans L’Agefi.fr intitulé « Les dividendes prennent le dessus sur les investissements ». Il semblerait que face au ralentissement économique mondial, les entreprises aient décidé de conserver un versement de dividendes toujours aussi importants… et cela au détriment de l’investissement, nécessaire pourtant à la croissance économique et à la survie des entreprises elles-mêmes !

Malgré des perspectives de résultats en baisse, les groupes cotés versent des dividendes dans des proportions toujours plus grandes.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Dans « Why Enron Remains Relevant » (Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, 2 décembre 2016), Michael W. Peregrine aborde les leçons de l’affaire Enron, 15 ans après. Un bel article !

The fifteenth anniversary of the Enron bankruptcy (December 2, 2001) provides an excellent opportunity for the general counsel to review with a new generation of corporate officers and directors the problematic board conduct that proved to have seismic and lasting implications for corporate governance. The self-identified failures of Enron director oversight not only led to what was at the time the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, but also served as a leading prompt for the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the corporate responsibility movement that followed. For those reasons, the Enron bankruptcy remains one of the most consequential governance developments in corporate history.

Enron evolved from a natural gas company to what was by 2001 a highly diversified energy trading enterprise that pursued various forms of particularly complex transactions. Among these were the soon-to-be notorious related party transactions in which Enron financial management executives held lucrative economic interests. (These were the so-called “Star Wars” joint ventures, with names such as “Jedi”, “Raptor” and “Chewco”). Not only was Enron’s management team experienced, both its board and its audit committee were composed of individuals with broad and diverse business, accounting and regulatory backgrounds.

In the late 1990s the company experienced rapid growth, such that by March 2001 its stock was trading at 55 times earnings. However, that rapid growth attracted substantial scrutiny, including reports in the financial press that seriously questioned whether such high value could be sustained. These reports focused in part on the complexity and opaqueness of the company’s financial statements, that made it difficult to accurately track its source of income.

By mid-summer 2001 its share price began to drop; CEO Jeff Skilling unexpectedly resigned in August; the now-famous Sherron Watkins whistleblower letter was sent (anonymously) to Board Chair Ken Lay on August 15. On October 16, the company announced its intention to restate its financial statements from 1997 to 2007. On October 21 the SEC announced that it had commenced an investigation of the related party transactions. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow was fired on October 25 after disclosing to the board that he had earned $30 million from those transactions. On October 29, Enron’s credit rating was lowered. A possible purchaser of Enron terminated negotiations on November 28, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 2.

The rest became history: the collapse of the company; the individual criminal prosecutions and convictions; the obstruction of justice verdict against company and, for Arthur Andersen (subsequently but belatedly overturned); the loss of scores of jobs and the collateral damage to the city of Houston; Mr. Lay’s sudden death; and, ultimately the 2002 enactment of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, which was intended to prevent future accounting, financial and governance failings as had occurred in Enron and other similar corporate scandals. But a 2016 Enron board briefing would be much more than a financial history lesson. For the continuing relevance of Enron is at least two-fold

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Ivan Tchotourian

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, ça y est la France l’a fait : elle a adopté le devoir de vigilance pour les grandes entreprises. Le 30 novembre dernier, l’Assemblée nationale a finalement adopté, en dernière lecture cette nouvelle obligation. Si la nouvelle est à saluer, le texte se révèle éloigné des ambitions affichées au départ. Ce commentaire publié dans Les Échos.fr « L’Assemblée nationale adopte une vision répressive de la loi sur le devoir de vigilance des multinationales » revient sur un certain nombre de critiques :

Et encore :

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Ivan Tchotourian

Quel bel article d’Alana Semuels dans The Atlantic (ici) ! Cette étude revient sur la politique des fonds de couverture (hedge funds) et l’implication de leur activisme sur les politiques et les stratégies mises en place par les entreprises américaines.

Extrait :

DuPont is one of dozens of American companies that have abandoned a long-term approach to doing business after being the target of so-called activist investors. These investors buy up shares of a company and attempt to maximize the returns to their shares, usually by replacing members of the board of directors with hand-picked candidates who will push the company to cut costs. Activity by such investors has skyrocketed of late. In a 20-month stretch in 2005 and 2006, there were only 52 activist campaigns, according to John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia University Law School. Between 2010 and early 2014, by contrast, there were 1,115 activist campaigns. “Hedge-fund activism has recently spiked, almost hyperbolically,” Coffee writes in a 2016 paper, “The Wolf at The Door: The Impact of Hedge Fund Activism on Corporate Governance.”

These campaigns are damaging to the long-term outlook of individual companies like DuPont and also to America’s economy more generally. They often result in big cuts to research and development, substantial reductions in the workforce, and a focus on outcomes—in particular short-term profit—that hurt a company’s ability to survive in the long-term. The threat of activism affects companies across the economy: Even public companies not targeted by activists often change their behavior and cut costs to avoid becoming a target. This may be one of the reasons why America is slipping in funding research and development projects when compared with other countries.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Un article du Timely Disclosure de Me Lindzon Russell aborde la situation des entreprises canadiennes face à l’activismes des investisseurs : « Canadian Issuers Continue To Have Success Against Activist Investors ». Résultat : elles résistent bien !

As noted in the Globe and Mail’s recent article, “In Canada’s boardrooms, activist investors are striking out” (subscription to the Globe and Mail required), Canadian listed public companies have continued to have success against activist investors. In fact, since January 1, 2015, Canadian listed issuers have a perfect record against “professional” activists in formal proxy contests, having won all six such contests to make changes to the board which were initiated by hedge funds or institutional investors. This success may be driven, at least in part, by issuers’ increased emphasis on advance preparation, including shareholder engagement. If issuers are more attuned to the views of their shareholders, it stands to reason that they will be in a better position to assess the likelihood of successfully defending against an activist in a formal proxy contest and pre-emptively settle those situations that they do not believe they can win. This explanation, while compelling, may be incomplete. With that in mind, I offer the following five observations based on a review of the public record of unsuccessful contests recently initiated by “professional” activists.

Je vous laisse découvrir les 5 observations de l’auteur…

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian