From the category archives:

RIM

Has the SEC Caught the OSC’s Disease?

February 20, 2009

The world’s most powerful securities regulator has long called itself the investor’s advocate. Given its stunning failure over the Madoff scam and the latest scandal, involving R. Allen Stanford, it may be on its way to becoming known as the investor’s nightmare. For years, the Securities and Exchange Commission was regarded as one of the [...]

Read the full article →

RIM’s $77 Million Black Eye

February 5, 2009

We said a while back that there would be more surprises coming out of Research In Motion’s options backdating scandal.  A big one came today. Two years ago, I raised a number of concerns about Research In Motion’s corporate governance, describing it as a relic of the past.  As its backdating scandal unfolded, I expressed serious [...]

Read the full article →

The Elephant The Globe and Mail Missed

November 28, 2007

Research In Motion holds the distinction of being Canada’s top company in terms of market capitalization. Its boardroom governance practices fall considerably short of that mark. It is a seismic shift in Canada’s corporate governance landscape that appears to have passed The Globe and Mail by without causing a ripple. The Globe and Mail’s Report [...]

Read the full article →

RIM’s Real Stock Option Problem: Maybe It’s Giving Out Too Many

November 24, 2007

When a board gets to the point where it feels it needs to have a widespread automatic stock sales program, maybe it’s a sign that it’s giving out way too many stock options to insiders I’ve been receiving a number of calls from the press regarding Research In Motion’s new automatic stock selling plan for [...]

Read the full article →

Bre-X: The Giant Fraud that Started with a Bang Ends with a Regulator’s Whimper

August 26, 2007

From the stock market watchdogs who permitted the premature listing of the company to the cops and regulators who were unsuccessful in bringing even a single fraudster to justice, Bre-X was a colossal failure at every level. It’s not surprising that the Ontario Securities Commission has decided not to appeal the acquittal of John Felderhof, [...]

Read the full article →

Kudo of the Week: SEC Trumps OSC Over Nortel Penalty

June 8, 2007

Once again, the SEC has done the heavy lifting for Canadian investors by imposing, according to reports, a $100 million penalty on Nortel. Indeed, nothing could more graphically illustrate the contrast in approach toward the protection of the capital markets between the SEC and the OSC than this decision. For exactly the same kind of [...]

Read the full article →

New Message in RIM’s Inbox: U.S. Prosecutor Calling

April 27, 2007

We predicted last year there would be more surprises in connection with RIM’s backdating scandal. We have been following those developments regularly at Finlay ON Governance, with an admitted degree of skepticism. Most of the time it seemed we were the only ones to be doing so, as so many reporters, analysts and investors appeared [...]

Read the full article →

SEC Not Buying RIM’s Options Backdating Story

April 12, 2007

There are too many unanswered questions and inconsistent statements for anything less than a formal investigation by the U.S. regulator. It is another example of how Canada’s OSC has dropped the ball. There is a lesson for companies conducting internal investigations that are to be reviewed by securities regulators. When writing the report, don’t do [...]

Read the full article →

Women in the Boardroom: There is a Reason for the Slow Pace of Change

April 4, 2007

Remarkably, too many women see, hear and speak no evil in the face of the male-dominated executive suite Since the 1970s —that’s right, for more than 30 years— I have been arguing in speeches, lectures, appearances in the media, op-ed columns and in high-level meetings in boardrooms and in the councils of government that business [...]

Read the full article →