Back to school!

It's been really fun teaching at the Rutgers Law School with my friend and colleague Professor Doug Eakeley in our "Current Issues in Corporate Governance" seminar. I love feeling the students' energy in the building and being able to plop myself down and do some work in a top-notch law library when I need to. Where else can I check out books on corporate governance by Myles L. Mace written in the early 1970s for my own reading pleasure? One thing Professor Eakeley and I do at the opening of each class is ask if the students have run across any interesting current events they want to share. Here are some of the ones they've brought to our attention:

Board Composition:

• NY Governor Cuomo signs legislation requiring NYS Departments of State and Taxation & Finance to conduct study on number of women on corporate boards of companies authorized to do business in NY

• Goldman Sachs CEO says firm won’t underwrite IPOs of companies without "at least one diverse board candidate"

• UK hits 2020 goal for 33% of FTSE 350 directors to be women

• Only half of FTSE 100 companies have appointed one ethnic minority to their boards ahead of 2021 deadline

SEC Disclosure:

• SEC approves Nasdaq changes to definition of “family member” to exclude stepchildren

• Companies are now fixing more errors in financial statements by "revisions" than "restatements"

Executive Compensation:

• Abigail Disney backs California bill to raise corporate taxes based on CEO pay ratio

• Federal judge considers tying PG&E’s executive bonus program entirely to safety goals

• Sanders’ tax plan would tax all private and publicly held corporations with annual revenue over $100 million based on CEO pay ratio

Shareholder Activism:

• Peabody Energy plans to add directors from Elliott Management

• Japanese companies are increasingly subject to tender offers as corporate governance improves

CEOs:

• New thinking emerges on optimal tenure for a CEO

• PwC survey says nearly 30% of CEOs projecting a decline in global economic growth in 2020

Stakeholder Governance:

• Airbnb board to form Stakeholders Committee

Insider Trading:

• J&J CEO questioned over timing of stock sale after Reuters contacted company for major story on asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder

Some pretty good finds here. You can see that our students are engaged and aware of a lot of what's going on in the corporate governance world today. Makes for great classroom discussion as we continue to march through the rest of our course materials!