The Effectiveness And Remuneration Of The Board Of Directors A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Governance Codes In The Uk And Germany

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, grade: 80%, University of South Wales, language: English, abstract: The following report aims to compare and contrast the development of the principles effectiveness and remuneration in the UK and Germany. Firstly, characteristic factors of the two principles are worked out, their development in the UK is analysed and underlined by a critical evaluation of the role and responsibilities of ED and NEDs in Barclays. In a second step, the development of the carved factors in Germany is assessed and underlined by a critical analysis of the board’s role and responsibilities in Deutsche Bank. At last a brief conclusion is given.

This book argues for a correct balance between risk and reward and for Directors' remuneration to be equitable to all parties and stakeholders. By examining the current theories, practices and regulations and explaining them in detail it provides a state of the art overview of one of the key corporate governance issues of our time.

More and more, the agenda of corporate governance reform has been calling for a dramatic change in the composition and structure of boards of publicly traded companies, with particular criticism reserved for the role of independent directors. This timely, ground-breaking book takes a new and rigorous approach to this important issue. Investigating board independence from a distinctly original perspective, the author's systematic analysis explores the effective interaction of such aspects as the following: What specific functions are expected of independent directors? How these functions fit with the unitary board structure? Why independent directors are seen as inherently necessary for corporate governance? Whether board independence can be compatible with other governance mechanisms? How mainstream company law is applied to independent directors. The analysis leads to a series of solutions designed to eliminate the real and perceived obstacles to the proper functioning of independent directors. In the process, the author discusses such critical 'moments' in corporate governance as monitoring, public relations, social responsibility, shareholder activism, the danger of 'groupthink', remuneration, collective liability, and codes of conduct. The discussion and analysis chart a course through which independent directors can better serve the goal of improving the system of corporate governance. As such, it will be greatly appreciated by investors, corporate counsel for institutional investors, and policymakers and academics in relevant areas of both business and law.

This publication examines how effectively boards manage to align executive and board remuneration with the longer-term interests of their companies.

A complete copy of the Report including the Code of Best Practice. The Study Group on Director's Remuneration was set up on the initiative of the CBI in January 1995 in response to public and shareholder concerns about pay and other remuneration of company directors in the United Kingdom. The report covers code of best practice, main action points, remuneration committees, disclosure, remuneration policy, service contracts and compensation, privatised utilities.

The power to control litigation in the company's name is normally vested in the board of directors. This gives rise to a conflict of interest whenever some or all of the directors breach their duties. In such a situation, the board's decision whether or not to litigate is potentially tainted because the wrongdoers are part of the decision-making process. The board as a whole is therefore an unsuitable decision-making body and the following question arises: who should decide whether it is in the company's interest to initiate litigation against the alleged wrongdoers? There are a number of different persons and bodies in which the decision-making power could be vested. The British approach is the reversion of management power to the shareholders in general meeting and, in certain restricted situations, the availability of the derivative action brought by a shareholder on behalf of the company. Both mechanisms give rise to significant difficulties. This book begins by explaining the board's conflict of interest, sets out a theoretical framework of legal strategies that cover the whole range of approaches to deal with it and analyses their strengths and weaknesses. The analysis consists of an assessment and comparison of four models of the enforcement of directors' duties, which are based on the current law and reform proposals in Britain and Germany. Particular reference is made to recent case law and its practical implications.

ïBased on extensive interviews with those directly involved in the executive pay setting process _ executives themselves, remuneration committee members, remuneration consultants, and institutional investors _ this excellent study finally explains how, despite repeated regulation over the past twenty years in both the UK and Australia, limits on the amount executives get paid, and a clear relationship between pay and performance remain as elusive as ever. Dr. SheehanÍs study suggests that by targeting the pay setting process rather than pay itself, regulation may have contributed, albeit unintentionally, to the endless upward ratcheting of absolute levels of executive pay.Í _ John Roberts, University of Sydney, Australia ïFor those that believe executive remuneration in the UK and Australia is too high and poorly aligned with company performance, this book provides an excellent analytical framework and strong arguments in favor of greater shareholder oversight of remuneration practices and pay levels. It is well-written, carefully argued and persuasive in its treatment of the subject. I wholeheartedly recommend it.Í _ Randall S. Thomas, Vanderbilt University Law School, US In this timely book, Kym Sheehan examines the regulatory technique known as ïsay on payÍ _ where shareholders vote on executive compensation in an annual, advisory vote on the remuneration report. Using the model of the regulated remuneration cycle, and drawing upon evidence of its operation from interviews, voting data and remuneration reports from UK and Australian companies, the book demonstrates whether say on pay can operate successfully to both constrain executive greed and ensure accountability exists for company performance and decision-making. The Regulation of Executive Compensation is essential reading for corporate governance academics, remuneration consultants, company directors, regulators, pension and superannuation fund trustees and unions. Politicians and their policy advisers, lawyers, accountants and anyone concerned about the corporate governance of listed companies will find much to interest them in this detailed study.

The dialogue of the board and its chairman with investors is an established practice in many countries, such as the United Kingdom, the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and recently also Germany. In the UK this dialogue covers the whole range of relevant board topics, certainly including good corporate governance aspects such as the composition of the board and the remuneration of the directors as well as good corporate culture and ethics in the corporation. In Germany this dialogue may also take place between the chairman of the supervisory board and institutional investors; this is firmly established in the practice of most of the DAX-30-corporations, and some other corporations follow the trend. This practice is taken up by many codes of good corporate governance, for example in the UK Corporate Governance Code 2014 and the UK Stewardship Code 2012 as well as in the Corporate Governance Codes of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the USA and since 2017 also in the German Code. The investor dialogue involving the chairman of the board, both in the one-tier and the two-tier systems, is legal and legitimate, but it has three main limits: insider trading and market abuse, company secrets, and equal treatment of the shareholders. The latter limit creates practical problems which are met by the various codes in different ways. While the competence for investor relations is primarily with the CEO viz. the chairman of the management board, the chairman of the (supervisory) board should also be available - within reasonable limits - to discuss supervisory board-related issues with investors. This has been rightly suggested by the German Corporate Governance Code, though it has met with certain doctrinal concerns. In many countries this dialogue is not restricted to the chairman of the board but extends to other board committe chairmen, to the senior independent directors and sometimes to all directors. It can be expected that the chairman of the board's dialogue with investors will sooner or later not only become a general practice, but that it will also be considered to represent good corporate governance.

In International Standardisation of Good Corporate Governance - Best Practices for the Board of Directors the Academy of Directors (AoD) presents a multidisciplinary approach for the governance of a company. The AoD also aims to use the interaction between the academic and the business world to change the environment in which companies work. This task is realised in different ways: by conducting applied scientific research, creating a large pool of professional experience and networking within the AoD, confronting these research results with the practical experience of the members, publishing these results, and organising training programmes. The AoD therefore collaborates very closely with the academic world. The Vlerick School of Management was the co-founder of the AoD, together with a great number of national and international business partners. The foundation of the AoD goes back to the initiative of its president, Mr. L.H. Verbeke (Loeff Claeys Verbeke). He was convinced that the increasing international interest in corporate governance would also affect Belgian companies, but that there was a need for an `indigenous coherent' view of corporate governance. Being at the cross-roads of different cultures and languages and at the same time being a very open economy, Belgium could not simply copy another country's code on good corporate governance. Therefore the initiative was taken to set up a broad international overview of the best practices for the board of directors, which is presented in this volume. This analysis is not only oriented towards the `famous' codes but aims to highlight as well the practical applications and problems faced in implementing these suggestions. Consequently special attention is given to the best practices for family businesses and medium-sized companies.

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 72%, Aston University (Business School), course: MSc in Accounting and Finance, language: English, abstract: This report provides an analysis and evaluation over the executive remuneration issues. The basic issues in this report raised the public debate and the academic literature findings over the misalignment between the pay and performance and the level of executives’ emoluments. In order to provide a more specific and practical perspective of the issues raised, this project used a case study of Tate & Lyle plc. and its main competitor Associated British Foods plc. Methods of analysis include the review over the UK corporate governance evolution on executive remuneration matters. The second part of the review is based on the academic literature review. Furthermore, the internal structure of both companies and the level of salaries in the hierarchy give an explanation over the level of the executive emoluments. Moreover, the structure of the executive remuneration is approved in both companies by the majority of the shareholders and there is evidence that the short-term and long-term performance of the companies have an important effect on executives’ salary. Last but not least, there is evidence that the executive remuneration is almost the same across the same industry even if the performance between two companies is different. The report finds that both companies are in line with UK corporate governance code guidelines and aligned pay with performance. However, there are not adequate case studies through different industries in order to have a more precise information over the relationship between pay and performance of other companies. The major area of weakness on the academic literature is the lack of case studies which can provide more detailed information of practical implementations of the Code and academic literature. Moreover, the institutions and most of the academic research is based on using average figures based on the FTSE100, FTSE250 and FTSE350 Indexes. The report also investigates the fact that the analysis conducted has limitations. Some of the limitations include the lack of ABF’s annual report for 2014. In order to overpass this difficulty, this project used the annual report of 2013 for both companies. Another limitation was the lack of case studies over the executive remuneration issues based on certain companies rather than the average trend of an Index. Last but not least, there was no other case study of a company over the executive remuneration issues in order to use the methodology.