Our Company Right or Wrong

In mid-2005 few investors in Porsche would have guessed that only 18 months later their firm would be the dominant shareholder in Volkswagen. Then again, it is none of their business, because they have little say over the sports-car maker’s managers or strategy. The Porsche and Piëch families hav...

By Economist Staff • March 16, 2007

Cosmetics Ex-CFO Comes Clean with SEC

The former chief financial officer of Del Laboratories has agreed to settle insider trading charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.According to the SEC, Melvyn Charles Goldstein was the CFO of Del — which manufactures cosmetics and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals under brand names i...

By Dave Cook and Stephen Taub • March 15, 2007

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Proxy Access Defeated at Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard shareholders declined to support a much-anticipated resolution that would have given them more power to nominate board members.According to the Associated Press, the proposed bylaw amendment would have enabled shareholders who have owned at least 3 percent of Hewlett-Packard’s out...

By Stephen Taub • March 15, 2007

Black Shadows

Trials of the century have become an annual event in the business world, thanks to America’s wave of corporate scandals. But the trial of Conrad Black, which began in Chicago on Wednesday March 14th, may actually merit that title, at least judged as spectacle. On show will be an epic cast, led by...

By Economist Staff • March 15, 2007

Not So Good in the Neighborhood

Applebee’s International has announced that negotiations with Breeden Capital, the activist hedge fund headed by former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden, have failed to secure an agreement regarding its board of directors.The hedge fund, which owns 5 percent of the comp...

By Dave Cook and Stephen Taub • March 9, 2007

Shareholders: Take a Hike, Take-Two

A number of newly powerful shareholders of Take-Two Interactive Software, the company best-known for its blockbuster “Grand Theft Auto” series of video games, are ready to move in on the company’s turf, or at least its board of directors. In a regulatory filing Wednesday, an investor group — incl...

By Dave Cook and Stephen Taub • March 7, 2007

”Cable Guy” Sentenced to Nine Years

Charles C. Hermanowski, once the co-owner of Americable International, was sentenced in a Miami courtroom to nine years in prison and fined $4 million for a scheme to divert about $50 million for his personal use, reported the Associated Press.U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Seitz credited Her...

By Stephen Taub and Dave Cook • March 6, 2007

Corruption Conundrum

As accusations of firms offering bribes-for-business fly around Europe — entangling CFOs and other high-ranking finance executives — it’s hard not to wonder whether corporate anti-corruption initiatives are failing. It’s been ten years since the OECD unveiled an anti-corruption convention calling...

By Janet Kersnar • March 1, 2007

It Tolls for Thee, Proxy Firm Tells Director

The chairman of the compensation committee at Toll Brothers will be the target of a “withhold” campaign at the homebuilder’s annual meeting, scheduled for March 14.Advisory firm Proxy Governance is recommending that shareholders withhold their vote from Carl Marbach — one of four directors on the...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 27, 2007

SEC Flags Premerger Trades

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled insider trading charges against Luiz Gonzaga Murat, the former chief financial officer and director of investor relations of Sadia S.A., a Brazilian food products company. Murat was charged with buying the stock of a company Sadia planned to acquire ...

By Marie Leone • Feb. 22, 2007

Backdating: Not a ”Judgment Call”

The stock-options scandal has snarled CEOs, CFOs, and other corporate executives in internal and government investigations, not to mention bad press. For the most part, independent directors have managed to keep clear.Now the net seems to be widening, thanks to a pair of rulings by the influentia...

By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 20, 2007

Former Monster Exec Pilloried by SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Myron F. Olesnyckyj, former general counsel of careers and recruitment company Monster Worldwide, with securities fraud for his role in backdating stock options granted to thousands of Monster officers, directors, and employees, including himself...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 15, 2007

Majority Voting Goes Mainstream

A majority of the Standard & Poor’s 500 have implemented some form of majority-voting process for approving directors in uncontested elections, according to an exhaustive study by Claudia Allen of Chicago law firm Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg.Last February, Allen noted, that was true for less...

By Dave Cook and Stephen Taub • Feb. 14, 2007

SEC Swats Dow with Bribery Charge

Dow Chemical has agreed to pay $325,000 to settle civil charges that a foreign subsidiary made improper payments to Indian government officials.The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Dow violated the books and records and internal controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices ...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 14, 2007

Ethics Charges Delay Datascope Filing

Datascope, which manufactures medical devices, announced that it will delay filing its most recent quarterly results while it investigates reports — including a series of charges against founder, chairman, and chief executive officer Lawrence Saper — made to its ethics hot line.The company stress...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 13, 2007

Ohio AG Questions UnitedHealth Inaction

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is questioning the actions — or, rather, the inaction — of a UnitedHealth Group committee that is looking into possible legal proceedings against former chairman and chief executive officer William McGuire, according to published accounts.UnitedHealth’s special lit...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 8, 2007

El Paso Settles Iraq Oil-for-Food Charges

El Paso Corp. has agreed to pay about $7.7 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges stemming from the United Nations Oil for Food Program in Iraq.The SEC, which first requested related documents from El Paso in December 2004, filed charges against the energy company under the ...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 7, 2007

SEC Alleges Pre-merger Insider Trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Wednesday that it has charged Donald A. Erickson, former audit committee chairman of oil and gas producer Magnum Hunter Resources, with unlawful insider trading before the company’s 2005 merger with Cimarex Energy.In its complaint, the SEC alleg...

By Stephen Taub and Dave Cook • Feb. 7, 2007

Is It OK to Sleep with Your Controller?

Forget backdating as a company woe, what about plain old dating?The NASA love triangle — which involves a female astronaut charged with attempting to murder a female acquaintance of a male colleague, a space shuttle pilot — shines a new light on corporate policies about dating co-workers.Accordin...

By Marie Leone • Feb. 7, 2007

Chevron Announces Governance Changes

Chevron is the latest company to announce governance changes before its annual meeting.The energy company amended its by-laws to require that the chairman be elected by the board of directors each year, following the annual meeting. Previously, the chief executive officer assumed the chairmanship...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 6, 2007

Home Depot, Investor Group Reach Accord

The Home Depot signed a peace deal late Monday with Relational Investors, its largest and most boisterous shareholder, which had been threatening a showdown at the retailer’s annual meeting.David H. Batchelder, a principal of Relational Investors, will join Home Depot’s board of directors on Febr...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 6, 2007

PepsiCo Serves Up CEO in Chairman Role

PepsiCo announced that chief executive officer Indra K. Nooyi will take the additional title of chairman of the board.Nooyi, 51, succeeds Steven S. Reinemund, just as she did last October when she became CEO of the soft drink and snack food giant. Reinemund announced last August that he would ret...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 5, 2007

Ex-CFO: CEO Dictated Accounting Policies

The former chief financial officer of HomeGold Financial, a small mortgage products company, testified Wednesday that she was wrong to use aggressive accounting procedures, according to the South Carolina Greenville News.Karen Miller reportedly added, however, that she was simply working at the d...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 1, 2007

More Companies Split Chairman, CEO Roles

The number of U.S. companies that have divided the responsibilities of chairman and chief executive officer rose in 2006, according to a new report from Institutional Shareholder Services.ISS found that 41 percent of companies had split those positions as of last year, compared with 37 percent in...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 31, 2007

Enron’s Kopper Reports to Prison

Michael Kopper, once the managing director of Enron Global Finance and a top lieutenant to former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, reported to prison on Tuesday.Kopper, who pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in August 2002, was sentence last fall to 37 months behind bars. He will se...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 31, 2007