A committee made up of the corporate governance who's who has put together a list of issues that can impede good corporate governance.
Called "Barriers to Good Corporate Governance," the article appeared in the March/April issue of The Corporate Governance Advisor.
The article is structured as a series of questions designed to determine what barriers to good governance exist. The three main questions are:
* "Are directors' interests sufficiently aligned with and dedicated to the long-term value of the company?,"
* "How does the board operate?" and
* "Are shareholders disenfranchised or disinterested?"
Richard Koppes, former general counsel of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento, who is now of counsel to Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, Sacramento, and teaches a course in corporate governance at Stanford University Law School, put together the group, which has no formal name.
Its members come from both the institutional and corporate worlds and include James Burton and Kayla Gillan, CEO and general counsel, respectively, of CalPERS; Martin Coyle, executive vice president of TRW Inc., Cleveland; Peter Clapman and B. Kenneth West, chief counsel and senior consultant for corporate governance, respectively, of Teachers Insurance Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund, New York; and Terence Gallagher, vice president, corporate governance, Pfizer Inc., New York.
