Over the next several weeks, The Corporate Library will be releasing a series of reports examining key trends in corporate governance practices among companies in the S&P 500, Russell 1000 and Russell 3000. The first in the series, titled, "2009 Governance Practices Series: Clawbacks," examines the adoption of clawback policies by publicly-traded companies, finding that the spread of clawbacks is progressing at a snail’s pace. While the number of companies with such policies has increased slightly over the past two years, the overall level of adoption remains low for all the indices studied.
A clawback policy enables a board of directors, often at its discretion, to recoup cash and/or equity incentive payments from executive officers if such officers have been deemed responsible for fraudulent actions, if such incentive payments were based on misstated financials that were the result of fraud, or if such officers have been responsible for other kinds of action detrimental to the company.
The report is available for $25 from The Corporate Library’s online store.
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