This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web
– Reuters (paywall) reported that according to data from ISS Corporate Solutions, racial and ethnic minorities now hold a fifth of board seats at Russell 3000 companies, up from 12 percent in 2019, but remain under-represented. The increase comes amid growing pressure on US companies from investors to add more racially and ethnically diverse director voices to their boards. Most minority groups hold a smaller share of board seats than their share of the total US population. That is particularly true for directors of Hispanic or Latino origin, who hold 3.6 percent of board seats but account for 18.9 percent of the US population.
‘While this is a huge sea change in terms of the percentages, it still falls short of the ethnic breakdown of the US population,’ said Marija Kramer, head of ISS Corporate Solutions. ‘It’s a watershed moment but probably not something to pat ourselves on the back too much about.’
– According to CNBC, Home Depot said it will spend an additional $1 bn to give its hourly employees a raise, as retailers and restaurants compete for workers. The company did not disclose the new average wage for employees but said every market’s starting wage is at least $15 an hour. Home Depot is the latest major retailer to signal that the labor market is still tight, particularly when it comes to lower-wage hourly workers.
– Reuters reported that the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)...
The Newsboys’ federal lawsuit is pushing back strongly against past allegations that a woman was raped by a Newsboys lighting technician and it asserts that the report was false and contradicted b...