Category: Other News

Why Corporate Governance is Central to Japan’s Growth Strategy

2016-06-30 posted by 1 Comment

Just to add a few additional points in addition to Nick’s insightful comments–>  Given (a) evidence that productivity in Japan is very strongly influenced by investment-specific technology, and (b) evidence that services sectors in the non-IT sector were “left behind” while manufacturing and IT sectors were able to capitalise on the technology boom, it makes sense to focus efforts on structural reform in the services sector.

Still, as Fukao, Miyagawa and Hisa demonstrated in their 2012 paper,increasing intangible capital alone has proven no indicator of rising TFP in the services sector.  This may explain why policies designed to promote growth via intangible investment in services sector in the early 2000’s were misplaced.

So what are the policy alternatives?  The second TFP paper gives us some key policy ingredients:

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GPIF Sues Toshiba: Japan’s Securities Law that Makes it Easy to Sue

2016-06-23 posted by

The the news of the day is that GPIF is suing Toshiba for ＄１０ million． It is only one asset manager that is suing, almost certainly under Article 21-2 Japan securities law (FIL) which makes it very easy for plaintiffs to sue and claim a “presumed damages amount”, and then shifts the burden of proof to the defendant company (unlike US law) to disprove its negligence.  The stock has come down by about 26% or so.   (Interestingly, Japanese securities law in this area is much harsher than US law, which never shifts the burden of proof in such cases.)

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IMF Official in Interview: ”Japan must take Abenomics even further”

2016-06-21 posted by

”A: The decision makes sense in light of the pace of growth in the country and the pace of growth in the global economy. At the same time, I think it’s important that attention be put on securing sustainable public financing in the long run. I think a postponement makes sense because the economy needs fiscal support rather than fiscal contraction right now. But at the same time, we would like to see a redesign of the consumption tax, where it’s introduced with increases coming in small percentages every year in the regular way, so that the decision is not political. It’s automatic, so that the effects aren’t so big, so that the growth needs of the economy can be taken care of.

But we certainly agree that the amount of public debt will need to be brought down. Getting to a primary balance is an important goal. [Japan needs to] continue to make progress in consolidation and make sure that public financing is made sustainable.

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May 12th “Director Boot Camp” – Another Successful Program! Next Course: July 14th

2016-05-14 posted by

2016-05-12 17.19.39

On May 12th, BDTI held  its English Director Boot Camp , attended by a number of highly experienced participants. Participants from various companies heard lectures about corporate governance by Nicholas Benes and Andrew Silberman of AMT, and exchanged experiences and opinions at a spacious, comfortable room  kindly donated for our use by Cosmo Public Relations, a leading communications and PR firm in Tokyo.

We are planning to hold the next course on July 14th. Sign up early!

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The Board Director Training Institute of Japan: Progress Report for FY2015

2016-04-10 posted by 1 Comment

bdti trainig progress fy2015

Below is BDTI’s recent report to its Sustaining Donors , who are listed here and described in Note 1 below. BDTI is now raising funds for FY2016, so if you are interested to support the cause of injecting deep understanding and substance into Japan’s recent governance reforms, please consider making a donation.

  • We aggressively followed up on my proposal to create a Corporate Governance Code for Japan, which became a reality in June thanks to the fine efforts of many others (See Note 2) over many years. We gave a number of seminars (and still are) on the most important aspects of the CG Code, how to approach compliance with it, and the need for companies to produce their own “CG Guidelines” in order to actually have the policies (and substance) they claim they have in TSE governance reports. This was a concept that BDTI (myself) had proposed and promoted from the very start, a year before the CG Code came into effect.
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    Our activities last year included producing example CG Guidelines, numerous BDTI seminars or speaking engagements, and a large joint seminar with Mizuho Research (we will have another soon.) These efforts were successful in encouraging approximately 30% of Japanese companies to produce corporate governance guidelines, even thought the quality of many of these still needs to be improved. See the results of this survey.
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Martin Lipton: ”Succeeding in the New Paradigm for Corporate Governance”

2016-03-21 posted by

Recognizing that the incentive for long-term investment is broken, leading institutional investors are developing a paradigm that prioritizes sustainable value over short-termism, integrates long-term corporate strategy with substantive corporate governance and requires transparency as to director involvement. We believe that the new paradigm can reduce or even eliminate the outsourcing of corporate governance and portfolio […]

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FCPA Blog: “Former Olympus USA Compliance Chief Collects $51 Million for Blowing the Whistle on Global Bribes”

2016-03-02 posted by

 

“First-hand details of the global pay to play kickback scheme at Olympus were brought to the government’s attention by the company’s former corporate compliance officer. John Slowik filed a federal lawsuit in New Jersey under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claim Act and similar state laws. Lawyers at the Kenney McCafferty law firm represented the whistleblower.

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How companies succeed through radical engagement | McKinsey & Company

2016-02-27 posted by

“The authors of Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society explain why organizations must look beyond corporate-social-responsibility initiatives to truly engage with consumers and communities.

Antibusiness sentiment is nothing new. Yet mending the rift between big business and society isn’t merely a worthy goal—it may represent a new frontier of competitive advantage, profitability, and longevity for today’s organizations. In Connect: How companies succeed by engaging radically with society (PublicAffairs, March 2016), L1 Energy chairman and former BP chief executive officer John Browne, McKinsey’s Robin Nuttall, and entrepreneur Tommy Stadlen offer a practical blueprint for reconciling companies and communities.

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