Panelists also discussed the more recent release of a set of
comprehensive stewardship and governance principles by the Investor
Stewardship Group, a consortium of large institutional investors and
asset managers that in aggregate invest over $17 trillion in the U.S.
equity markets.
Speakers on the panel cited the importance of having members of
boards of directors represent a diversity of expertise and background.
In recent years, and especially since the 2008 financial crisis, boards
have been seen as playing a more significant role than they once did.
Boards today are viewed as partners with company management, they
said, not just monitoring and overseeing corporate actions but actively
participating in setting business strategy.
The panel consisted of OHanley; Lublin; Amy Bilbija, managing
director, Strategic Governance Advisors; Glenn Booraem, principal of the
Vanguard Group Inc. and treasurer of each of the Vanguard Funds; H.
Rodgin Cohen, senior chairman, Sullivan and Cromwell LLP; Abe M.
Friedman, CEO, CamberView Partners; Brian L. Schorr, partner and chief
legal officer, Trian Fund Management LP; Linda E. Scott, managing
director and associate corporate secretary, JP Morgan Chase and Co.; and
Myron T. Steele, partner, Potter Anderson and Corroon LLP, and former
chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court.
Best academic paper competition
Also at the symposium, three academic papers that had been selected
as finalists from numerous submissions in response to a Call for Papers
were presented, and the Best Paper award was announced.
The award was presented for Captured Boards: The Rise of Super
Directors and the Case for a Board Suite, by Kobi Kastiel of the
Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and Yaron Nili of the
University of Wisconsin Law School.
The other finalists were The Golden Leash and the Fiduciary Duty of
Loyalty, by Greg Shill of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate
Governance, and Affiliated Corporate Donations and Director
Independence, by Ye Cai of Santa Clara University, Jin Xu of Virginia
Tech and Jun Yang of Indiana University.
About the Weinberg Center
The John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, part of the
University of Delawares College of Arts and Sciences, was established
in 2000.
It is one of the longest-standing corporate governance centers in
higher education and the only center in the state of Delaware, which is
the legal home for most U.S. corporations.
The Weinberg Center provides a forum for business leaders, the legal
community, academics, practitioners, students and others interested in
corporate governance to meet, interact, learn and teach, with the goal
of positively impacting and improving the field of corporate governance.
It also brings together professionals in corporate governance, law and
accounting for conferences and symposia on critical issues.
In welcoming the audience of more than 250 to the 2017 Corporate
Governance Symposium, Myron Steele, chair of the centers advisory
board, said the center plays an important role as a forum for rational
discourse about issues in corporate governance, past, present and
future.
Article by Ann Manser; photos by Duane Perry