After the bruising treatment that Barrick had to endure last year for its indefensible pay packages, the company got the message. The compensation plan it has made public on March 31st goes a long way towards the kind of pay system that all companies should adopt. Having published a policy paper on executive compensation in […]

[…] “Yvan Allaire, executive chairman of the board of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations, was positive about the plan overall “It’s a giant step in the right direction,” said Allaire, praising the move towards share awards over stock options. Options have fallen out of favor in recent years in part because […]

“Quebec’s market watchdog says it is pursuing talks with other provinces to try to strike a compromise on changes to Canada’s takeover bid and defensive tactics regulation. “The vulnerability of our public companies is a Canadian problem, not only a Quebec one,” Louis Morisset, chief executive of the Autorité des marchés financiers, said in the […]

[…] “Péladeau has also insisted he is committed to the code of ethics of the province’s legislature. But provincial academics and experts aren’t confident that goes far enough. “These measures are insufficient,” Yvan Allaire, the executive chairman of the Institute of Governance and professor at the L’Université du Québec à Montréal, wrote in an opinion […]

[…] «That may be true. As Yvan Allaire of Montreal’s Institute for Governance wrote in an opinion piece this week: “The legislative measures the working group is proposing are draconian.” Among them: Allowing Quebec companies to adopt variable voting rights that could increase the longer shares are held (the aim being to keep the influence […]

According to a study made public by the Institute for Governance (IGOPP), Canadian airports, which are public assets with a quasi-monopolistic position in their respective markets should be subjected to an independent review process of their decisions concerning major investments and tariff increases. Ever since Ottawa’s decision to transfer the management of airport facilities to […]

Dr. Yvan Allaire, Executive Chair of the Institute for Governance (IGOPP) and Chair of the Global Agenda Council on the Role of Business- World Economic Forum, has prepared this context paper on the Role of Business which have been presented at the 2014 Davos summit. According to Dr. Allaire, the long-term success and survival of a business […]

Any business is a risky endeavour with an uncertain life expectancy. It has been, and should remain, a driver of innovation, a creator of wealth, a harbinger of economic freedom. The core mission of a profit-driven enterprise is not to fulfil some philanthropic duty. But neither is it solely to maximize short-term shareholder value. The […]

[…] “Professor Yvan Allaire, chair of the board of directors of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGOPP), an initiative of HEC Montréal and Concordia University, objects to CEOs receiving such large payments when a firm is sold. If it’s a negotiated sale, he believes CEOs with golden parachutes will be more […]

“The Institute for the Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGOPP) announced today the release of their most recent policy paper on executive compensation, entitled “Pay for Value: Cutting the Gordian Knot of Executive Compensation”. The policy paper, prepared by Professor Yvan Allaire for the working group on compensation of IGOPP, noted that, “We are […]

Large corporations can and should play a significant role in how we deal with social and environmental issues. To do this, however, they need to focus on building long-term value for all stakeholders rather than focusing on delivering short-term returns to shareholders. When managers and board of directors of widely held, stock-market listed corporations look […]

The federal minister of finance is wrong to think a national securities commission would lower risk. Give the federal minister of finance his due: He is nothing if not persistent. Rebuffed by the Supreme Court of Canada in a unanimous and blunt judgment, the minister is trying to squeeze a national securities commission through the […]

Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Forum:Blog will be publishing a number of personal views by key figures on the event and its implications. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily the World Economic Forum. A great deal of pain was inflicted on ordinary, innocent people by the financial […]

The governance reforms carried out in publicly traded companies since, if not before, the fiascos called Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing, et alia have resulted in boards of directors largely staffed with independent, diligent people with solid business experience. Then, why is it that boards, though dutiful and careful, remain surprise-prone and ill-equipped to challenge […]

[…]”GoBankingRates.com arrived at these findings by evaluating average worker pay from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (2006 – 2013) and CEO compensation from the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations’ ‘Pay for Value: Cutting the Gordian knot of Executive Compensation’ (2012) as well as AFL-CIO’s current ‘Executive Paywatch.’ Worker output data comes […]

In a recent commentary in The Globe and Mail, Gwyn Morgan, the former chair of the board of SNC-Lavalin, gives us his take on what happened within the engineering giant and offers some advice to improve corporate governance. The gist of his piece bears on how hard working and diligent the chairman and the board […]