{"id":512,"date":"2013-02-11T11:57:10","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T10:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/frontisgovernance.wordpress.com\/?p=101"},"modified":"2013-02-11T11:57:10","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T10:57:10","slug":"chi-controlla-gli-amministratori-e-realmente-indipendente-analisi-dei-principali-fattori-di-rischio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/chi-controlla-gli-amministratori-e-realmente-indipendente-analisi-dei-principali-fattori-di-rischio\/","title":{"rendered":"Who controls the Administrators is truly independent? Analysis of the main risk factors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The derivatives scandal that has recently engulfed MPS Bank, the disputed acquisition of Lactalis American Group by Parmalat, and the potential responsibilities of Directors and Statutory Auditors in the events that have overwhelmed the Fondiaria-Sai Group, are just some of the most recent occurrences that have shone a spotlight on the validity of internal control systems in Italian listed companies.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color:#008000;\">Frontispiece<\/span> <span style=\"color:#333333;\">Governance<\/span><\/strong> He studied the supervisory bodies of all major Italian companies to better understand the real level of independence of internal controllers. The analysis covered 116 Directors and 75 Supervisory Board Members in office as of 31 January 2013.<a title=\"Board of Auditors 2013\" href=\"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/attachments\/article\/315\/Studio%20Collegio%20Sindacale%20FTSE%20MIB%202013.pdf\/\" target=\"_blank\">Download the full analysis here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Concerns have been raised regarding the actual independence of 9 Chairmen of the Board of Statutory Auditors (i.e. 26%), 22 Standing Auditors (27%) and 31 Supervisory Board members.<\/p>\n<p>Among the most common factors of concern:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the duration of the appointments within the same Group (22 Councillors, 12 Mayors and 3 Presidents),<\/li>\n<li>excessive compensation (11 Mayors and 2 Presidents),<\/li>\n<li>the excessive number of assignments in affiliated companies (10 Mayors, 3 Presidents and 1 Councillor).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Other risk factors, likely less obvious but no less relevant, concern links with political institutions, having held the position of external auditor of the company before being appointed Mayor, and consultancy provided to companies in the Group.<\/p>\n<p>In several cases, multiple factors of concern have emerged regarding the same Mayor.<\/p>\n<p>In 4 cases (Atlantia, Banco Popolare, Buzzi Unicem and Tod\u2019s) concerns were raised regarding all members of the Board of Statutory Auditors.<\/p>\n<p>The level of transparency is also not always adequate: 12 companies do not publish any information on their website regarding the CVs of their Directors, while in the other 22 cases the information is often partial and does not include all the positions held.<\/p>\n<p>According to Frontis Governance's guidelines, and as has been repeatedly argued, \u201cthe application of the rules and self-regulatory codes in force from time to time is to be considered a basic element of good governance, but the latter cannot be limited to the mere observance of the rules.\u201d Good governance, which guarantees all stakeholders respect for the fiduciary mandate held by directors, cannot disregard the nature and characteristics of each individual company.<\/p>\n<p>In all likelihood, in none of the cases analysed in the study have laws or regulatory codes been violated, and in any event, the identification of potential unlawful conduct is entirely beyond the scope of the document. What does emerge, however, is that simple adherence to various regulations can lead to situations that, while perfectly legitimate, profoundly undermine the fiduciary relationship between shareholders and internal management and control bodies. Strong connections with major shareholders, ongoing professional relationships with the Group, excessive remuneration or ties to individuals with collateral interests, cannot help but constitute risk factors, and for this reason should always be avoided, irrespective of whether the law permits them or not.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lo scandalo derivati che ha recentemente investito la Banca MPS, la contestata acquisizione di Lactalis American Group da parte di Parmalat e le eventuali responsabilit\u00e0 di Amministratori e Sindaci negli avvenimenti che hanno travolto il Gruppo Fondiaria-Sai, sono solo alcuni dei pi\u00f9 recenti eventi che hanno acceso i riflettori sulla validit\u00e0 del sistema di controlli [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,25],"tags":[46,28,17,47,34,37,48],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-organi-societari","tag-atlantia","tag-banca-mps","tag-banco-popolare","tag-buzzi-unicem","tag-fondiaria-sai","tag-parmalat","tag-tods"],"acpt":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontisgovernance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}