“How many times and in what contexts do the words “green”, “eco” and “sustainable” appear in your company’s financial statements, press releases and marketing materials?” Although this question has probably not yet featured in a proposal for Directors & Officers liability insurance, it is one which external regulators and other stakeholders are examining with…
In September 2019, Thomas Cook entered into liquidation, impacting hundreds of customers leaving them without flights and holidays as well as lenders, suppliers, partners, landlords of the high-street shops, employees (21,000 of them) and pensioners. Like other corporate failures and collapses, questions have emerged around: The role of the board, senior executive team and NEDs…
On Tuesday 22nd January 2019, Patisserie Valerie announced that it failed to secure an extension to its lending facilities and that it had to collapse into administration. Patisserie Valerie is the latest high-profile company to collapse because of fraud and inaccurate data. This raises some of the exact same issues as the collapse of Carillion…
Mr Ghosn was arrested in November 2018 on suspicion of understating his compensation package in the reported financial statements of Nissan. His arrest has raised uncertainty over the future of Renault-Nissan. The corporate scandal has highlighted important corporate governance issues worth the attention of the NEDonBoard community of non-executive directors and board members. To discuss…
This blog post goes back to the questions we sent our community in our newsletter a few weeks ago about the Ryanair public dispute and corporate governance situation. In August, NEDonBoard published a thought-provoking piece urging nomination committee to consider whether their boards are equipped to engage with their stakeholders. In our article, we reviewed…
The Ryanair situation offers an interesting case for our non-executive director and board member community. In December 2017, Ryanair agreed to recognise trade unions for pilots and cabin crew in an attempt to head off strikes planned during the Christmas period. But unrest have been ongoing. Ryanair has had to cancel thousands of flights because of strikes over staff working conditions, making…
On 15 January 2018 Carillion plc was forced into liquidation. Prior to its demise, Carillion was a multinational construction services and facilities management company with headquarters in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom. Carillion, prior to its liquidation, had liabilities of about £7 billion, was the second largest construction company in the UK, was listed on the London…
The collapse of Carillion has reignited debate about the effectiveness of non-executive directors. Specifically, the report issued by the Parliamentary select committee in May outlined the role of Carillion’s board of directors in the collapse of the company. As the Professional Body for the non-executive director and board member community, NEDonBoard calls for non-executive directors…
In the past few weeks, we have asked our community to share the lessons that they have learned from the high profile collapse of Carillion. Engagement from the NEDonBoard community has been great and we thank you for sharing your views. In this article, we are publishing some of the answers we received to our…
