Responsible Investor

stake, over accusations of corporate failings and poor financial performance at HSBC. The fund told Global Pensions magazine it supported measures put forward by Knight Vinke to improve performance at the bank. Knight Vinke accuses HSBC of being “too large and too complex to be controlled effectively” and is demanding it focus on core competencies to better shareholder value. 
*A US website has been launched giving investors access* to a paid-for searchable database of pension fund legal actions. The site, run by Pension Governance and the Michel-Shaked Group, features more than 1500 class actions. Click here for site
The role of business in combating climate change, the place of biofuels in energy production and future water and waste management are on the agenda at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which runs from January 23 – 27.
Ethos, the Swiss sustainable investment manager, has published the 2008 edition of its Proxy Voting Guidelines.
The report incorporates both Ethos’ best practice standards on corporate governance as well as the 2008 guidelines that will steer its shareholder voting positions. The company has revised its guidelines on issues of board directorships, executive remuneration and capital structure and voting rights. Ethos link
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a collaboration of over 315 institutional investors with assets of more than $41 trillion, has begun working with some of the world’s largest companies to assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in their supply chains, including their subsidiaries in China.

Companies working within the CDP Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC) include Dell, HP, L’Oreal, PepsiCo, and Reckitt Benckiser. Cadbury Schweppes, Imperial Tobacco, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Tesco and Unilever, all joined the initiative in October 2007. The CDP says it aims to create a single standardised approach to provide key climate change information throughout corporate supply chains. The project will be rolled out in May 2008 with a subsequent report on progress.
Collaborative shareholder engagement with German companies could be hit if a proposed law relating to concert parties is passed in its current form, the European Corporate Governance Service (ECGS), a partnership of the leading corporate governance research and advisory groups in Europe, has warned. The ECGS has written to Eduard Oswald, chair of the finance committee of the German parliament, highlighting concerns that under the law two or more shareholders who engage with a company independently to raise a shared concern, without knowing of each others intentions, would be considered as ‘acting in concert’ whenever a significant or permanent shareholder is involved. It said it believed this could lead to legal uncertainties for market participants which may discourage institutional investors from voting or engaging with companies, or with each other, to improve corporate governance at listed companies. The German law was initially proposed to stop hedge funds acting together to apply pressure to German companies as was alleged in the case of Deutsche Boerse plans in 2005 to take over the London Stock Exchange.

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