OLD (Pre-Period 35) Topic 17 Corporate Governance – RESUBMISSIONS ONLY

Hello @trephena and everyone working hard. I have been a bit quiet as working as auditor can really get to you during the busy season.

But am here now,. any help I will assist.

@Trephena thanks for your help I’m making progress (I think ) in Part III, have studied the German CG Kodex, the different board types, chose BMW and Range Rover as comparator companies pls could you PM me the article on writing a good T17 Rap so I can check if I’m on the right track. Thank

@jpco -OT has had to suspend the PM Service as scammers and spammers were trying to use it to contact students. You will have to post your email address (which I will then delete) as that is the only way I could send an attachment anyway.

@Trephena thanks again……

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR P32 SUBMISSIONS

There is a specific submission checklist for this topic – go to page 12 and scroll down

However also see the general submission checklist at the top of the main subject page.

Yes this is fine as CG is about best practice. The dual board feature of German companies makes the company accountable to more stakeholders. Remember it is application in practice that you should focus on!

Hi,

I am I about to resubmit my RAP on Quality of Corporate Governance of a bank I choose. In my RAP I made a comparison of the application of the Corporate Governance by the bank to Corporate Governance code applicable in the country and that issued by the BIS Basel committee for banks.

I was wandering that do I have to make comparison to competitor banks.

Thanx I appreciate your answer

It will be insufficient to just have stakeholders in the,quadrants without any further explanation e.g. how the company attempts to satisfy the various stakeholders. There is usually most to write on shareholders but how the company interacts with its own staff (reward programmes, whistleblowing diversity and equality) are important as well as relations with suppliers and customers.

@trephena

Hi trephena,
Thank you so much for all the help you have provided us with on this forum!!! It has really addressed a lot of my doubts.\

I had a question about referring to the UK CG code:
When introducing areas of focus, for example section A:1, can I combine parts of the subsections?
What I mean is, can I maybe address “The sufficient regularity of board meetings and the disclosure of attendance of each individual member at these meetings.” rather than having to address each provision separately?

Also, I had read something about quoting provisions from the code but for the life of me cannot seem to find that particular post again today and so would you mind advising me on how to reference different provisions from the code? Am I allowed to perhaps start off by writing ” As per section A:1 of the code..”
Also, will quoting from the code create problems in terms of plagarism?

So sorry for the trouble, am having a lot of starting difficulties..

another question is would it be a problem if i dont assess the quality of risk management in my research paper.. or is this too important a part to miss?

Thanks a ton,
Elizabeth.

Thank you for your intriguing question. I think Bhs could be very interesting but probably it may be a little challenging. By that I mean the facts about how it was run in the last couple of years are only just emerging. So probably unless you have lots of time to assemble all of the information between now and November it is likely to be easier to choose a different company which was more stable or one for which the information is already in the public domain. However yes Bhs would probably be my recommended company for P34/P35.

In conclusion I always suggest a company that you yourself are interested in. If you are able to meet the challenge of Bhs then yes, go with it.

Well I suppose it then comes down to whether you want a higher grade or are content with a C. Sometimes the report grade hardly impacts on the honours classification but sometimes it can.

M &S done as recommended on this forum should give you a pass. (Although in the past some students reported back that they achieved Bs, I think markers have ‘toughened up’ and now expect a bit more original research and/or a less routine approach). To get a higher grade markers need to see a bit more critical thinking such as examples that a student has thought about aspects of the topic and delved a bit deeper through their research to question and critique those aspects from different view points.

So taking Burberry whom you mentioned: There is this article from 2014:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jul/11/burberry-shareholders-revolt-christian-bailey-pay-package

If I were doing this company I would now try to find out what happened about executive pay at the AGM in 2015 and I would be keeping an eye on the 2016 AGM. I would also look at the website of the highpaycentre.org which is particularly interested in excessive executive pay and read any recent papers by Prof Max Steuer from the London School of Economics who has researched on the subject. Dealing with the routine ‘stuff’ adequately but briefly (and possibly showing the results via bar or pie charts and diagrams to save on words!) but refocusing on the more contentious issues is likely to get a much better grade.

As I have mentioned in Top Tips for the RAP – to get an A the student needs to ‘thrill’ the marker. Bringing in items the marker may not be aware of is one way to impress (they obviously don’t know everything about every company!) as long as it is all properly referenced to show validity of the information. The more practical CG examples relevant to your chosen company you can demonstrate the greater the marker will be ‘thrilled’ – especially if they have already been presented with dozens or ‘same-old’ reports on CG that reported the ‘same-old’ routine information but showed little evidence of exploring the subject in everyday practices.

So for easy life go for M&S… but personally as I am more adventurous myself I definitely wouldn’t !!! 😀

NOTE:
I am currently very busy so would ask students to ensure they have run through previous answers to posts before raising a question as they are likely to find the solution faster that way.