Recent governance failures have driven an intense, and growing, focus on corporate culture and accountability, along with a global trend towards greater transparency and more rigorous risk management processes. In this environment, it is critical for companies to maintain the highest standards of governance and risk compliance to allow boards to be confident in their decision making.
We work alongside our clients' boards, management and legal teams, providing tailored advice on legal and regulatory requirements, emerging trends and market best practice, including with respect to domestic and international corporate law and governance frameworks. We have particular expertise working with boards, general counsel, and company secretary and investor relations teams to advise on corporate governance and stakeholder engagement matters.
We advise on directors’ duties and liabilities, board composition and board policies, market disclosure and related procedures and systems, director and senior executive contracts and transitions, remuneration structures and disclosures, including employee share plans and incentive arrangements, annual reports and annual general meetings, shareholder meetings and communications generally and internal capital management initiatives such as buy-backs, capital reductions and dividend reinvestment plans.
Our Head Office Advisory Team is Australia’s largest legal team solely dedicated to corporate governance issues and is the trusted adviser to a significant proportion of the country’s largest companies. This gives us line of sight across the market and ensures we know current practice and can anticipate how stakeholders react. We regularly advise on market disclosure issues, regulatory investigations, significant downgrades and class actions, activist actions by shareholders and CEO transitions.
Our Corporate Governance Advisory Team in the UK is similarly proud to advise the largest number of UK listed companies as main corporate adviser, according to the latest Adviser Rankings Limited law firm adviser rankings. Our team comprises governance specialists that combine technical expertise and practical advice to clients on the full spectrum of governance issues. We have an excellent grasp of best practice and are often called upon to provide judgements based on our specialist knowledge. We work with listed and privately-held companies to provide a full range of governance advice and expertise including on UK listing regime and disclosure issues, corporate reporting requirements, the UK Corporate Governance Code, company meetings and directors' duties.
