From the category archives:

RIM

RIM Finally Runs Out of Shiny Objects

July 1, 2012

What a contrast is the deathwatch that now grips many RIM analysts.  Years ago, they were bedazzled cheerleaders.  We had some thoughts on the folly of that short sighted thinking at the time. Today, they seem more like jilted  fanboys in the face of the company’s announcement of record losses, shrinking sales and shipments and [...]

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Quoted on efforts to kill the Volcker Rule

May 25, 2012

And other overdue thoughts on Conrad Black’s return to Canada, Obama’s fall, RIM’s folly, Canadian healthcare death panels and the changeless universe of Wall Street The Centre for Corporate & Public Governance was interviewed last week about the frequent behind-the-scenes efforts of the privately financed Washington-based Committee on Capital Market Regulation to turn back regulatory [...]

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Quoted in Maclean’s Magazine on RIM

January 28, 2012

Recent changes only confirm that the  company  remains in denial We are quoted in this week’s cover story of Maclean’s on the RIM fiasco. Regular readers will know that Finlay ON Governance has been on this story for several years and has long predicted the kind of stock meltdown and leadership turmoil that has rocked the company.  The [...]

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RIM Needs a New OS — for its Boardroom

September 16, 2011

The game has changed.  RIM’s management has not.  Neither has its board. Today’s latest (20 percent) plunge in the stock of Canadian based Research In Motion, this time because the company missed about every expected metric for the quarter, re-confirms that RIM needs a new operating system for its boardroom.  It is the board, with [...]

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Research In Motion’s Plunge a Failure of Corporate Governance

June 20, 2011

The crashing fall of Research In Motion’s stock from its euphoric highs where management could do no wrong (even when it did) to the current depths of shareholder odium has one explanation — and only one explanation.  It is a failure of corporate governance, pure and simple.  What brought RIM to this point was adumbrated [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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