FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2010
End of Week Round-Up
Several items to share from the last few days: two speeches that Bob gave at the end of last year are now available and we present a short list of articles that Bob is reading now.
Bob attended the Annual Conference of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum in Bournemouth , UK in December. Read his speech here.
Many of you have seen the video of Bob’s speech at Harvard Law School . You can now read that speech.
And, as always Bob is reading, reading, reading. Here are a couple of research papers from recent days:
“Measurement Issues in the Proxy Access Debate” by Joseph Grundfest.
“Did Corporate Governance ‘Fail’ During the 2009 Stock Market Meltdown?” By Brian Cheffins.
“A Matter of Appearances: How Corporate Leaders Manage the Impressions of Financial Analysts…” By James Westphal and Melissa Graebner.
“Wall Street’s Elder Statesmen Favor More Regulation.” New York Times article by Louis Uchitelle.
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2010
New Essay by Bob Monks
In consideration of financial crisis and recent corporate failures, Bob has written a new essay. Corporate Governance: Past, Present & Future (not to be confused with his recent and similarly-titled speech at Harvard) is based on two assumptions:
1.) A self-governing corporate structure is optimal if it can be made to work. 2.) The history of the last 30 years of supposed corporate “self-restraint” coupled with the economic debacle of the last two years offers compelling evidence that current efforts at corporate governance are not working.
Who then will step into the breach? Read the entire essay.
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010
Citizens United: “Worst judicial decision since Dred Scott…”
Last Thursday February 4 Bob addressed the Citizens United case in a telephone news conference (listen here). Hosted by Shareowners.org as part of an effort by a coalition of shareholder and governance groups, the event featured a wide-ranging, three-pronged response to the last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision providing much greater latitude to corporations making campaign contributions.
Bob was joined by New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Bruce Freed of the Center for Political Accountability and Maureen Thompson of Shareowners.org. Offering his perspective on Citizens United, Bob began his speech by saying:
“As they say, there is good news and there is bad news. The bad news is that Citizens United represents the worst judicial decision since Dred Scott; the good news is that the Supreme Court of the United States has held that there is such a thing as corporate democracy. Now is the time for shareholders to put that democracy to work to protect their own interests against boards that may want to ‘play politics’ and have no clue as to how to do so without devaluing their companies.” (Entire Speech)
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2010
The Road From Ruin
Matthew Bishop , U.S. Business Editor of the Economist, and writer Michael Green have a new book out called The Road from Ruin: How to Revive Capitalism and Put America Back on Top. Bob read an advance copy and has been talking about it ever since. You can readBob’s recent and very enthusiastic note to Matthew Bishop below.
And be sure to check out the book website — it’s full of related articles, reviews and a schedule of book-related events.
Bob writes,
I have hugely enjoyed THE ROAD FROM RUIN. Thank you for writing it; thank you for sending me a manuscript. In a phrase – It is a… masterpiece…and thank goodness, as the authors are young, we have much to which to look forward.
My sense is that the juxtaposition of truly luminous writing, simple, clear, unprejudiced; scholarship – for the entire twentieth century range of economics; and keen journalistic awareness of the relevance of current events justifies the appellation of masterpiece.
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2010
Citizens United
There has been a lot of very interesting press on the Citizens United decision recently. It’s all the more interesting if we look back to September when SCOTUSreheard the case but there was much less media coverage. It has us scratching our heads a bit that there’s so much more discussion now that the case is over. So, it seems like a good time to resurrect Bob’s essay with Peter Murray. Last August they released an essay on the case and how judicial activism figured in the decision to review the issue. Read the essay here. And, you can look back at our posts on the issue:
Monks & Murray talk about Citizens United on MPBN
Corporate Speech and How We Got Here
Judicial Activism on a Grand Scale
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2010
Monks Testimony on Exxon-XTO merger
Bob submitted written testimony for a hearing on the Exxon-XTO merger and its impact on U.S. energy markets. The hearing was held January 20 before the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. Bob’s testimony was not accepted because the committee saw it as too harsh on Exxon. Instead, they heard testimony from Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon, and Bob Simpson, Founder of XTO.
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2010
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission begins hearings
The Angelides Commission begins public hearings on the financial crisis Wednesday at 9 a.m (ET) and the proceedings will be televised on CSPAN and on the FCIC website. The Commission will question panels of experts and financial company representatives for two days, and panel one on Wednesday includes Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan. The entire schedule is here.
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2010
Bob Monks: Harvard speech, Company filings and more…
It was a busy end to 2009 and this post is a catch-all of Bob’s newest work.
In November, Bob spoke to Lucien Bebchuk’s class at Harvard Law School about the state of corporate governance. The entire speech was recorded (including the question and answer period with students) and you can view the video or you can read the speech.
As in the past, Bob is once again involved in company filings to separate the CEO and board chair positions. There are three filings for 2010: ExxonMobil (XOM), Time Warner (TWX) and Caterpillar (CAT).
The Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting is this week in New Orleans . Bob was scheduled to give a speech on “Corporate Governance, Fiduciary Duties and Social Responsibility.” He is unable to attend but he did complete the speech and it’s available here.
POSTED BY STEPHANIE PHILBRICK
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