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Book: Bagley & Savage, “Managers and the Legal Environment” Chapter 21 Executive Compensation Reform Stock options-click here By Leticia Escoto. ???. COMPENSATION EXCESS LEADS TO CORPORATE REFORM. My Name is Happy Clueless. I’m The Scroll Ask me a Question? I have the answer.
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Book: Bagley & Savage, “Managers and the Legal Environment” Chapter 21 Executive Compensation Reform Stock options-click here By Leticia Escoto ??? COMPENSATION EXCESS LEADS TO CORPORATE REFORM
My Name is Happy Clueless I’m The Scroll Ask me a Question? I have the answer. Character introductions
Why is executive compensation reform needed? COMPENSATION EXCESS has lead TO CORPORATE REFORM
See the next slide to see a graph of executive salaries compared to corporate and employee earnings.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Comparison Earnings for Employees-corportions & executives
Who sets the compensation for the corporate officer? The Board of Directors. Corporate compensation
Who Governs the boards Actions? They are governed by federal regulation and state laws.
Is the Board independent of influence from the executive officers? • Not really Board of directors & influence by the Executive officers
Can’t there be an independent committee setting salaries? • Good question. • National Association of Corporate Directors which is a COMPENSATION COMMITEESoversight groups • have called for independent compensation committees since 1990’s. Independent compensation committees
That sounds great. what’s the problem then? problem The reality is most executive compensations committees are not truly independent and are influenced by the directors they are setting compensation wages for.
Every state has their own corporate conduct Codes. They require corporate officers to show two basic Fiduciary responsibilities. Duty of Care Duty of Loyalty What kind of state laws? Corporate conduct code
They are all similar except for Delaware. Section 102(b)(7) of the Delaware corporate code permits the certification of incorporation to include a provision eliminating the personal liability of the directors Are all State laws the same?
Are Private and public companies governed differently? State laws governs the actions of Boards For public and privately held companies equally State law Governing Actions
What Federal Reforms are there to try to regulate this problem? The first reforms were the securities act of 1933 and 1934. Two principal federal acts that regulate securities transactions and issuers. Federal Reforms
What were the Securities Exchange Acts about? • Three fundamental beliefs of the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 & 1934 • Investors should be provided with full information prior to investing • Corporate insiders should not be allowed to use nonpublic information concerning their companies to their own financial advantage • Investors who have been injured by misconduct should receive relief even in the absence of common law fraud SEC act of 1933 & 1934
Attempts indirect regulation by Disclosures and Shareholder Proposals • -Requiring companies to provide detailed information about executive compensation to the shareholders What can the SEC do? Roll of the securities and exchange commission
The SEC enacted regulation that tried to make corporations show a link between compensation and performance. What else can the SEC do?
SEC adoption of rules that expanded the compensation and performance disclosures required a proxy statements. • 1. A table showing compensation of the company’s five highest paid executives. • 2. A performance graph comparing the company’s five year cumulative. • 3. A report from the compensation committee presenting its rational. How did they do that?
Why are disclosures needed? • To provide a link between a firms pay practices and its financial performance.
Doesn’t look like it. Check out the link on recent executive excesses. Has Reform helped? Effectieness of reform
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 • sets high Standards of independence for Audit Committees • Problem: They did not address the makeup of the compensation committee • There is also the SEC governance rules of November 2003 on next slide What else can be done? Sarbanes-oxley act of 2002
For New York Stock Exchange and NASD. • Require compensation committee to • Approve and operate under a charter (NYSE only) • Limit membership to independent directors • Review and approve corporate goals and objectives relevant to CEO performance • Approve CEO compensation based on goals and objectives • determine the CEO;s long term compensation based on company’s performance and shareholder returns. Make recommendations to the board about non-CEO compensation, incentive compensation plan and equity based plans • Prepare an annual report on executive compensation to be included in company’s annual proxy statement SEC Governance rulesNovember 2003 Return To graph previous next
Executive compensation graph Bagley & Savage, “Managers and the Legal Environment”, chapter 21, 2006 References/ credits