Ms. Figueiredo Dias has extensive experience in international standard setting, legal and regulatory structure and governance, and academia. She currently serves as the President of the CMVM (Portuguese Securities Market Commission), the authority responsible for regulating and supervising the markets of financial instruments, covering listed companies, asset managers, auditors and investment firms. There, she provides strategic direction to the Board, manages the organization and represents it before International Organizations such as IOSCO and OECD, the European Commission and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), as well as the Portuguese Government, the National Council of Financial Supervisors and market stakeholders. She has also served as head of the international and regulatory policy department and of the issuers and financial information department at CMVM and has extensive experience in and understanding of financial regulatory frameworks. In addition, she has served as a member of the ESMA Board and Management Board, member of the IOSCO Board, Vice-Chair of the OECD Corporate Governance Committee, Chair of the ESMA Investment Management Standing Committee, and she will remain in office as non-executive President of the General Board of the University of Coimbra in Portugal. She holds a master’s degree in law from the Coimbra University Law School.

Review the press release on the IESBA’s website.

According to the group, the SEC should refrain from measuring the broader societal impacts of ESG compliance by listed firms because those matters are outside the regulator’s areas of expertise. “While several members of FER expressed concerns over lack of progress on environmental and social issues, the group agreed the costs of the SEC mandating these kinds of disclosures could be substantial and the potential gains would likely be slight,” said Richard Herring, Wharton professor of international banking and professor of finance, who is one of the 30 signatories to the FER statement.

Review the article on Wharton's website.

This new guidance leverages the principles from COSO’s Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) – Integrating with Strategy and Performance Framework (2017), and serves as a guide to help organizations align risk management with strategy and execution of their AI initiatives.

The project, commissioned by COSO and co-authored by Deloitte, focuses on the need for organizations to design and implement governance, risk management, and oversight strategies and structures to realize the potential of humans collaborating with AI.

Review the press release and publication on COSO's website.

Executives across these companies are paid through multifaceted compensation programs where “salary” is typically the smallest component of overall pay. Beyond salaries and pensions, the rest of their pay is generally made up of “pay for performance” bonuses, which is hypothetically based on how the company is doing. The performance measures differ by company but can include revenue, profit or stock price goals and they can also include things like low workplace deaths and how much employees like working for a company.

They found many executive officers in Canada actively benefited from the pandemic—either because their companies were on the right side of COVID-19 and made a profit from it or because their bonus formulas were changed.

For the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance's (CCGG) ongoing engagement and policy priority with respect to the use of non-GAAP measures in executive compensation was the observed practice of excluding poor financial results from determinations of executive compensation or “adjusting away the impacts of the pandemic”.  While expressly not impugning the practice of the use of non-GAAP measures in executive compensation, since releasing its position paper in late 2019, CCGG has been incorporating discussions of their use by boards during engagements, advocating for greater oversight and transparency as to how boards consider and implement adjustments for the purposes of compensation, paying particular attention to patterns of only “adjusting away” financial measures with negative performance implications.

Review the press release and report on the CCPA's website.

While boards are discussing worker-related issues more today, they still rely on indirect channels of information like employee engagement surveys and the opinions of senior executives. Absent direct worker engagement, it is difficult to know whether boards are having the right conversations to address worker concerns and receive worker insight about business operations.

These trends reveal an opportunity to strengthen America’s corporate governance system. Currently, that system is poorly designed to address worker interests. Workers have no formal role in American corporate governance. CEOs, board directors and investors are far removed from the tens of millions who work at the front lines of business. Worker insights rarely inform board-level decisions and the risks shouldered by workers are too often undervalued. The result is wasted potential that if captured, could benefit companies, workers, and society as a whole.

Review the publication on the Aspen Institute's website.

Review the press release and publication on the SASB's website.

The report addresses four broad areas. First, investors want to understand governance and processes, with regard to how the board and management identify, monitor and manage the risks, uncertainties and opportunities they face. The report then considers reporting needs relating to both the nature of these factors, in terms of characteristics such as context, importance and form, and approach, or how management is responding. Finally, it looks at scenarios and stress-testing and what investors want from them. A particularly helpful aspect of the report is the inclusion of a number of examples of current reporting practice from real companies, highlighting what is useful about them. A one-page summary and a discussion podcast are also both available.

Review the press release and publication on the FRC's website.

IOSCO’s Sustainability-related Issuer Disclosures report proposes a timeline for the ongoing work of the IFRS Foundation–with the ISSB climate standard expected to be completed by June 2022. Jurisdictions that begin engaging with policymakers now will be able to capitalize on the forthcoming standards–and therefore serve the public interest–as soon as they are finalized.

IFAC urges its member organizations to continue their support for the IFRS initiative, to engage now with local policymakers, and to provide feedback on the framework for making global sustainability standards local.

Review the following on the IFAC's website:

• How Global Standards Become Local
• Enhancing Corporate Reporting: Sustainability Building Blocks
• IFAC’s support for global sustainability-related standards

The Statement highlights the current information concerns of investors, regulators and policy makers, reviews standard-setter responses, and recommends how companies and accountants can address these concerns through: 

• Aligning and integrating climate-related information and disclosures with company climate commitments, targets, and strategic decisions. 
• Quantifying, wherever appropriate, financial impacts of climate issues. 
• Ensuring climate-related reporting complies with reporting requirements without material omissions or misstatements, based on a company-specific materiality determination. 
• Supporting global initiatives to enhance climate and broader sustainability-related reporting through standards set by a new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) that will address material impacts on a company’s enterprise value. 

IFAC encourages professional accountancy organizations to utilize this Statement in their communications with members to promote their critical role in ensuring companies understand and communicate climate-related financial impacts. As they stated in earlier communications to the profession: no one is better equipped than professional accountants to lead this important work. 

This Statement follows IFAC’s Climate Action Point of View, issued in December 2019, which highlights climate change as an urgent, global issue and outlines the influence and responsibility that IFAC’s 180 member organizations and their 3.5 million professional accountant members have in driving climate change mitigation, adaptation and reporting. With this Statement, IFAC continues to advocate and support the profession’s role in enabling climate action and assisting organizations as they develop their climate commitments and consider ways to decarbonize business models.

Review the publication on IFAC's website.

Here are some key takeaways:

• CAQ looked at the most recent publicly available ESG data for S&P 500 companies.
• We found that 95% of S&P 500 companies had detailed ESG information publicly available. The information the CAQ examined was primarily outside of an SEC submission in a standalone ESG, sustainability, corporate responsibility, or similar report. Of the remaining 5%, most companies published some high-level policy information on their website.
• Roughly 6% of S&P 500 companies received assurance from a public company auditing firm over some of their ESG information.

Review the publication on the CAQ's website.