Gouvernance | Page 2

Le 10 octobre, The National Law Review a publié un article intéressant revenant sur la situation britannique et les réformes à venir en gouvernance d’entreprise : « UK Corporate Governance: Change Has Got to Come! ».

A number of themes trailed in UK’s Theresa May’s first speech after securing the Conservative nomination, were repeated at last week’s Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. The new Government reiterated its intention to occupy the centre ground of British politics and the delivery of this political objective will undoubtedly have implications for corporate Britain – in the words of the Prime Minister “ a change has got to come.”

At the moment we are short on detail, but the Government has promised to publish plans later this year to have consumers and workers represented on company boards of directors. Speech soundbites also focussed on executive pay, the taxation of international business and the payment of excessive dividends, together with a more general promise to protect and enhance workers’ rights.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Le groupe européen d’experts en droit des sociétés vient de faire une proposition pour un droit des groupes : « A proposal for reforming group law in the European Union – Comparative observations on the way forward, October 2016 ».

The legal regime applicable to groups of companies in the European Union has been discussed for many years. National legislations have been adopted in a certain number of member states, and new initiatives are being considered by the European Commission and in academic writing. The central issues in groups of companies is the relationship between the controlling shareholder, often the parent company and the subsidiaries, and the potential for abuse to the detriment of the latter’s minority shareholders and creditors. Several answers have been formulated, going from a duty of the parent to indemnify the subsidiary for the charges imposed by the parent, to the acceptance of these charges provided they result in some benefit to the subsidiary and provided they do not endanger the subsidiary’s solvency. In a third approach, these issues may be solved by other common company law, e.g.  on the basis of the unfair prejudice provisions.  With respect to shareholder and creditor protection, a comparative analysis concludes that there is no need for additional regulatory safeguards. The present approaches indicate that group relations are often characterised by conflicts of interest. Therefore, it is proposed to develop a standard for dealing with these, especially under the form of Related Party Transactions.   The specific conditions for dealing with intragroup related party transactions are submitted for further discussion.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Bel article publié au Financial Times du 21 octobre 2016 : « Want to change banking culture? Back whistleblowers ». Après le scandale Wells Fargo, le journaliste revient sur la réforme de la culture bancaire dans laquelle les programmes de dénonciation ont toute leur place à condition que les dénonciateurs soient protégés.

Morceaux choisis :

Bill Dudley asked a couple of good questions this week, addressing a conference on reforming bank culture at the New York Federal Reserve.

“When people speak up to point out potential conduct issues, how are they treated?” said the Fed president, who spent about 20 years at Goldman Sachs before joining the reserve bank. “Are they held up as examples to emulate, or are they discouraged or even penalised?”

(…) There is a lot that needs to change, says Michael Winston. He is one of four former senior executives who have formed a group called Bank Whistleblowers United, pursuing a mission, they say, of restoring accountability to Wall Street.

(…) “If we want people to come forward, like in the Wells Fargo situation, we need to respect them, not punish them,” he says. “I know a lot of whistleblowers; nobody sees any protection. None.”

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, la province de l’Alberta a décidé d’aller de l’avant avec le thème de la féminisation des CA. Aussi, sa commission des valeurs mobilières vient-elle de lancer une consultation publique sur un projet de type « se conformer ou s’expliquer » (Janet McFarlane, « Alberta Securities Commission proposes gender diversity rule », The Globe and Mail, 14 septembre 2014). Pour rappel, cette règle du « conformer ou s’expliquer » a été mis en place dans la plupart des autres provinces canadiennes à l’exception de l’Alberta, de la Colombie-Britannique et de l’Île du Prince Édouard..

Alberta’s securities regulator is reversing course and has unveiled a proposal to adopt new reporting rules requiring companies to disclose their approach to gender diversity on their boards.

The Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) said Wednesday it will seek public comment on a proposal to adopt “comply or explain” rules requiring companies to explain their policies regarding the representation of women on their boards and executive positions, including whether they have internal targets for women.

The rule, open for comment until Oct. 14, would not require companies to add women to their ranks or adopt a diversity policy, but would require them to explain why they have opted not to have one. Companies would also have to report on the proportion of women on their boards and in executive officer roles.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Pour appuyer la finance sociale, le Canada a proposé par le passé de mobiliser les actifs des caisses de retraite. Dans cette optique, le rapport de 2010 du Groupe de travail sur la finance sociale a encouragé les gouvernements fédéraux et provinciaux du Canada à exiger des caisses de retraite qu’elles divulguent leurs pratiques d’investissement responsable. Le 27 novembre 2014, le gouvernement de l’Ontario a déposé le Règlement de l’Ontario 235/14 (règlement modificatif) pris en vertu de la Loi sur les régimes de retraite de l’Ontario. Au travers ce règlement (ici), le Parlement ontarien a décidé de rendre obligatoire à compter du 1^er janvier 2016 la divulgation de la prise en compte des questions environnementales, sociales et de gouvernance dans l’énoncé des politiques et procédures de placement des plans de retraite agréés. Le texte est rédigé comme suit : « A statement that the administrator of the pension plan must establish a statement of investment policies and procedures for the plan that contains, (i) the investment policies and procedures in respect of the plan’s portfolio of investments and loans, and (ii) information about whether environmental, social and governance factors are incorporated into the plan’s investment policies and procedures and, if so, how those factors are incorporated ».

Depuis mars 2016, les administrateurs des régimes de retraite déposent donc un énoncé des politiques et procédures de placement auprès du surintendant des services financiers contenant des renseignements précisant si des facteurs environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance sont intégrés dans l’énoncé des politiques et des procédures de placement du régime et, dans l’affirmative, comment ils le sont. Pour les relevés annuels remis aux participants actifs, le règlement modifié exige que tous les relevés annuels fournis depuis le 1^erjuillet 2016 contiennent des renseignements sur l’énoncé des politiques et procédures de placement du régime, y compris des renseignements précisant si des facteurs environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance sont intégrés dans l’énoncé des politiques et des procédures de placement du régime et, dans l’affirmative, comment ils le sont.

Dans un article de Benefits Canada intitulé « Pension plans still grappling with ESG definition despite new rules », le constat de la pratique observée se montre critique :

Even with new rules implemented in Ontario this year, the issue of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors remains a tricky question for Canada’s pension plans as they face a lack of perfect clarity around the definition of what they entail.

That was definitely the experience of RBC’s defined contribution pension team as it tried to wrap its head around Ontario’s new ESG requirement. Under new rules implemented this year, Ontario’s pension plan administrators need to mention in their statement of investment policies and procedures whether they’ve incorporated ESG factors into the investment process and, if so, how and if not, why not.

Even though these are “seemingly easy questions,” they really aren’t, said Angela Lin-Reeve, portfolio manager, pension investments, at RBC, during Benefits Canada’s 2016 Benefits and Pension Summit in Toronto on March 31. “We had to get educated because this wasn’t an angle we were used to in evaluating investments,” she said, adding that the small size of her team — just two full-time employees — made things even more difficult.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Pour Paul Hodgson, il est temps de changer la done dans le domaine de la gouvernance d’entreprise : « Change to U.K. CEO pay or regulation seen as inevitable » (Compliance Week, 20 juillet 2016).

Voici un extrait :

wC’s latest report, called Time to Listen, is subtitled, “We need to find a way to respond to public concern about executive pay, or matters will be taken out of our hands.”

The report draws its conclusions on the need to address income inequality from both its own research and the British Social Attitudes 32 survey, published in 2015, which showed strong agreement, even among those voting conservative, to some stark statements:

• There is one law for the rich and another for the poor
• Ordinary people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth
• Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance
• Big business benefits owners at the expense of workers

(…) The paper concludes that CEO pay in listed companies is probably the result of market forces operating in imperfectly. It says that the current system of shareholder votes is working but has not been given time to “bed down” and that further regulation may do more harm than good. Finally, it says: “We should in any case be more concerned about pay structures than pay levels.” But the report says that action is not simply required at the top but also at the bottom; addressing stagnating pay and employment uncertainty for ordinary workers. Especially in a period of uncertainty caused by Brexit, “companies will be judged by how they treat the most vulnerable in their workforce.”

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian