Under what circumstances is it appropriate to lay criminal charges against a publicly listed corporation for the actions of its employees? What justifies imposing what amounts, in Terrence Corcoran’s words, to a “corporate death penalty”? (Financial Post, February 23rd, 2015) Lawyers will debate these questions ad infinitum” but what would be a common-sense answer? A […]

[…] “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 […]

[…]”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 […]

“[…]“Today, it must be recognized that the integral application of this law could lead to unjust consequences for tens of thousands of innocent workers and to the destruction of an industry that’s vital to the Quebec economy,” Yvan Allaire, chairman of Montreal’s Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations, wrote in a July 2 […]

“[…] As the argument goes, SNC-Lavalin is too big to fail. That line of reasoning saved American banks when they created a housing bubble only to have it burst in their face. It also sparked the multi-billion-dollar bailout of North American car companies when the global economy tanked. “There are hundreds if not thousands of professionals […]

“The Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations is calling on regulators to require that proxy advisory firms ensure accuracy, provide transparency and avoid conflicts of interest in their recommendations and dealings. The institute is an independent organization based in Montreal whose founders include activist investor firm Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. Its mandate is to […]

This policy paper makes recommendations to institutional investors as the prime clients of proxy advisors and to securities commissions as the protectors of the integrity of financial markets. For a variety of reasons, proxy advisors have come to exert undue influence on the governance of companies listed on the stock markets and to play a […]

«As Quebec decays, Toronto seizes greatness» is the latest epistle of Conrad Black wherein he vents his disdain for Quebec in general and its «separatists» in most virulent particular. (The National Post, October 6th 2012) The affront pains coming from a man of Black’s experience, indeed a man who suffered the lashes of unjust accusations […]

E. Hunter Harrison retired as CEO of the Canadian National Railways Corporation on December 31st 2009. His was a good, lucrative run at CN. On his leaving CN, he held $ 77 million in unexercised options with a further $18 million in restricted shares to vest in the future. He is receiving a pension of […]

In 2010, 14.4% of board members of the 100 largest Canadian publicly listed corporations were women. During the year 2010, roughly 7% of these board members were replaced and for one in five cases by a woman. (Source: Spencer, Stuart, Corporate Board Report, 2010). Even to a patient, passive observer, it is clear that the […]

Dr. Yvan Allaire’s presentation at the World Economic Forum 2010 – Davos summit.

This book tells a sad tale. This is the tale of how and why the U.S. financial  system and the American  model of corporations, touted as examples for the rest of the world,  have proven fragile and destructive. It is the tale of how, over the last thirty years, financial markets became populated by funds […]

The distember of our times and investors’ belated outrage has turned corporate governance into a growth industry. Along with much hand wringing, disconsolate essays on ethics, host of new rules and regulations have come the banal and the trivial, invariably trotting on the allure of a surging. The essays contained in this monograph were written à […]

You can now view a video of a presentation given by Dr. Huguette Labelle, the head of Transparency International and Chancellor of the University of Ottawa, on November 5, 2008, at a business luncheon presented in conjunction with the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations Dr. Labelle’s presentation focused on the importance of good corporate governance […]

While the U.S. Congress was desperately scrambling to salvage its bailout plan, a panic-inducing chill went through the spine of the financial markets this past Monday, September 29 – as specialists and laymen alike are still struggling to come to terms with the finer points of this ongoing crisis. How exactly did the massive issuance […]