10.7 C
London
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Home Tags Accountability

Tag: Accountability

Personal liability is the means of deterring repeat offences of corporate...

Rolls Royce's recent “deferred prosecution agreement” shows again that senior executives appear not to mind paying out large amounts of shareholders’ money to escape any personal liability for their actions.

The Investor Forum and Sports Direct

One of the principal recommendations of the Kay Review of equity markets, which reported in 2012 to Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for...

Stakeholders with the most to lose should control struggling companies

When a corporation is unable to meet valid claims, control passes to the holders of these claims in a legally defined order of priority. But, as finance has grown more complex, these rules have come to look more shaky; they can falter dangerously in modern banking or in the case of a struggling retail business such as BHS.

Berkshire business model is simple and effective, yet rarely copied

Buffett's method is to find well-run companies and give them more freedom than they would enjoy on public markets. Yet other conglomerates use financial engineering and impose “transferable” management skills.

Incremental improvements to infrastructure offer better value for money

Does it lift your heart to hear that “Britain is uniquely placed to lead the world in a smart power revolution”? Do you share the ambition of George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, to discover “what the government needs to do to become a world leader in 5G infrastructure”? Here's why my heart sank when reading these words in the plans of the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission.

Our tax system needs purposeful change, not tinkering

George Osborne has, it is reported, abandoned plans for root-and-branch reform of the taxation of pension saving and will content himself with tinkering with rates of relief. However, what's really needed in our tax system — as in so many other areas of political life — is purposive change: reforms may well be implemented in piecemeal fashion but should be motivated by a sense of strategic direction.

Pharma responsibilities are to a wider community than its own shareholders

Two recent events have served to highlight the range of difficult questions raised by pharmaceuticals regulation. Last week, a man died in the French city of Rennes after a clinical trial of a painkiller went tragically wrong. In New York last month, the company controlled by former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, raised the price of the life-saving drug, Daraprim, from $13.50 a tablet to $750.

The business of attacking companies is hard to admire but publicly...

In cases of fraud official action inevitably damages both the business and its share price, and no agency will be right all the time. Short selling hedge funds are not right all the time either, but when they are wrong they lose their own money.

UK invites more bank failures by backtracking on executive liability

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which reported in 2013, recognised the central significance of executive responsibility for systemic failure in the sector. It proposed a senior managers regime which would hold executives liable for wrongdoing in activities for which they had responsibility even if they had no specific knowledge of the improper conduct. Having accepted this recommendation, the UK government is now backtracking.

Organisations advance by asking “what went wrong” rather than “who is...

Bad events in organisations are generally the product of bad systems rather than bad people. So, while it is right to place responsibility for the VW scandal with the chief executive rather than the individuals who falsified emissions tests, we need to go on and ask what it is about modern corporate life that has made such misbehaviour not only possible but appear increasingly common.

CONNECT

0FollowersFollow