London’s bonus culture is already overhauled July 7, 2010 EVEN before yesterday’s vote by European Union lawmakers to restrict bankers’ bonuses, City institutions had been working to address regulatory concerns about the role of the bonus culture in the financial crisis. The EU legislation – expected to be ratified by the European Council of Ministers later today – is likely to raise the bar [...]
E&Y to get its first non-exec July 4, 2010 ERNST & YOUNG is to appoint non-executive directors to its global advisory board, becoming the first of the big four auditors to announce its plans to fall in with the new audit code. The firm will announce the names of the four directors after the summer, and will go beyond the requirements of this year’s [...]
New code pressures investors to engage July 1, 2010 SHAREHOLDERS will have to take more responsibility for the companies they invest following today’s publication of the first ever Stewardship Code by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). The new code aims to create more transparency about how investors oversee the companies they own. FRC chairman Baroness Hogg said she hoped the new code would be [...]
WHAT DOES THE NEW CODE MEAN? July 1, 2010 Q.What is the Stewardship Code? A.The Stewardship Code, the first of its kind for the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), seeks to create greater transparency around the way investors oversee the companies they own by encouraging better dialogue between shareholders and company boards. Q.what does the frc hope to achieve? A.The FRC hopes that the new [...]
Accountants back report by regulators June 30, 2010 ACCOUNTANTS say they are willing to consider whether the current audit model needs to evolve to meet changing market needs, following a recent report by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) saying that the profession had not been sceptical enough about the financial firms it audited in the run up to the banking crisis. The City [...]
Auditors must learn to articulate their value June 30, 2010 If there is to be a positive legacy of the financial crisis, it must be in the lessons that market participants have learned from extremely challenging times. Bank auditors have been no exception. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Financial Reporting Council have set out their thoughts on the auditors’ role and the contribution they [...]
DON’T SING JERUSALEM TOO SOON June 29, 2010 DICK TURPIN MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARTEMIS WHAT a relief. Saving £100m, three-quarters of the government’s 820 websites are to go. Whitehall is reluctant to name the doomed. But it is widely believed that www.lovechips.co.uk – run by the marketing department of the Potato Council – is unlikely to survive the cut. As in the body politic, [...]
Sack unethical bankers, says commission June 13, 2010 BANKERS that have behaved “unethically” should be struck off by a new professional standards board, according to an influential commission into the banking industry. The Future of Banking Commission released its long-awaited report yesterday, with a radical blueprint for the industry in the wake of the financial crisis. It recommends that a new body should [...]
Britain’s film industry warns deep cuts to tax relief incentives could affect GDP June 7, 2010 THE British film industry yesterday warned cuts to a government tax relief system designed to make producing movies in the country financially attractive, would be devastating for the sector. The UK Film Council has commissioned a report on the film sector and its importance to the British economy and presented it to the government in [...]
City shake-up to get more women in boardrooms May 28, 2010 A shake-up of City firms in which more women will be put in boardrooms, will be undertaken as part of a review of corporate governance. The Financial Reporting Council said it wanted to “explicitly” ensure hiring committees took gender and diversity into account. Only 12 per cent of FTSE 100 directors are women and seven [...]