Keeping Good Companies articles from June 2005

Keeping Good Companies archives from June 2005

Sanctioned 'dobbing': whistleblowing under the Corporations Act.(Key Issues: APPLIED CORPORATE GOVERNANCE)
June 1, 2005... Blow the whistle on, Colloq, to betray, esp. to the authorities (1) The potential for a bell-weather change in attitudes to public interest disclosure by corporate functionaries has been rung in by the CLERP 9 reforms to the Corporations...

The tangible headache of intangible assets in a global accounting environment.(Key Issues: COMPANY SECRETARY)
June 1, 2005... The introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) creates a range of issues for Australian companies. To date, the bulk of the attention focussed on IFRS has been at a systems-implementation level. However, the new...

Australian companies and Sarbanes-Oxley: governance regulation in a parallel universe.(Professional Updates: CORPORATE LAW)
June 1, 2005... The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (colloquially referred to as SOX) and related rules introduced by the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) are adding to the corporate governance compliance requirements of some Australian companies. The...

National water law reform update.(Professional Updates: ENVIRONMENT LAW)
June 1, 2005... The Prime Minister has personally committed to the introduction of significant national water law reform as part of this government's fourth-term agenda. The reforms that were recently introduced present numerous opportunities for the private...

Completing the governance picture: how IT enables effective corporate governance.
June 1, 2005... Recent years have presented an increasing number of complicated and often confusing corporate governance and compliance challenges, with a range of regulatory measures being introduced, from the Australian Stock Exchange, Sarbanes-Oxley and...

The devil's in the detail: directors' and officers' insurance and defence costs.(Professional Updates: INSURANCE LAW)
June 1, 2005... There is a clear lesson to be drawn from the recent decisions of the High Court on the controversial issue of insurers' advancement of defence costs to directors and officers alleged to have acted dishonestly. That lesson is that, when it...

Underwriting of rights issues by shareholders.
June 1, 2005... The general prohibition on a shareholder increasing its holding in a company beyond the 20 per cent takeover threshold is subject to a range of exceptions. Several of these assist a shareholder in a company to avoid the prohibition when it acts...

A new take on resistance to change.
June 1, 2005... Next time you try to implement a change in your company that is met with staff resistance, remember, it may well be a reaction that employees cannot control. In fact, the latest neuroscience research shows that the long-accepted notion of...

ATO sets KPIs for officers and directors.(Key Issues: RISK MANAGEMENT)(Australian Tax Office)
June 1, 2005... Is risk in danger of becoming one of the most overused words in Australian business? In a recent speech (1), the Commissioner of Taxation, Mr Carmody, used 'risk' on no less than 27 occasions. Even allowing for the title of Mr Carmody's speech,...

Australian tax issues for development of intellectual property.(Professional Updates: TAXATION LAW)
June 1, 2005... Intellectual property assets are an important element of the total assets of a business. In Australia, these issues have more recently come to the forefront with the discussion of the impact of the International Financial Reporting Standards...