The Rise of Independent Directors in Australia: Adoption, Reform, and Uncertainty
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University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review Volume 23 Issue 2 Spring 2016 Article 4 5-1-2016 The Rise of Independent Directors in Australia: Adoption, Reform, and Uncertainty Luke Nottage Fady Aoun Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umiclr Part of the Business Organizations Law Commons, and the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation Luke Nottage and Fady Aoun, The Rise of Independent Directors in Australia: Adoption, Reform, and Uncertainty, 23 U. Miami Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 571 (2016) Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umiclr/vol23/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS IN AUSTRALIA: ADOPTION, REFORM, AND UNCERTAINTY* Luke Nottage & Fady Aoun* COPYRIGHT: The copyright in the Journal shall be owned by the University of Miami as a collective work pursuant to the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §§101 and 103 (b). The copyright in the Work shall be owned by the Author pursuant to the Copyright Act, 17 U.S. C. § 201 (c). This issue may be reproduced and distributed, in whole or in part, by nonprofit institutions for educational purposes, including distribution to students, provided that the copies are distributed at or below cost and that those copies identify the Author(s), the University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review, the volume, the number of the first page, and the year of publication. * A version of this paper was originally presented presented at the conference on “Independent Directors in Asia,” National University of Singapore, Feb. 26-27, 2015. An earlier version was presented at the conference on “Independent Directors in Japan and other Major Jurisdictions in Asia,” Japanese German Center Berlin, July 17-19, 2014. We acknowledge helpful feedback from participants at both conferences, and valuable information or insights provided subsequently by Henry Bosch AO, Associate Professor Pamela Hanrahan and Tim Bednall, as well as earlier by Professors Frank Clarke, Graeme Dean, Ron Masulis and Ian Ramsay, George Gilligan, and Dr. Suzanne Le Mire. For research and editorial assistance, we also thank Michael Power, Ganesh Vaheisvaran, and Matthew Barry. We also acknowledge seed funding for research from Sydney Law School’s Legal Support Scholarship Fund (2012-13), and feedback on some of these ideas presented at conferences on East Asian Law and Society (Yonsei Law School, Seoul, Sept. 30, 2011), “Business Law Reform in Asia” (Sydney Law School, Aug. 3, 2012) and “Developments in Corporate Governance: East Meets West” (Sydney Law School, Jun. 6, 2014) at Sydney Law School. A shorter version of this paper was prepared for Harald Baum, Souichirou Kozuka, Luke Nottage, and Dan Puchniak (eds.) Independent Directors in Asia (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). * Respectively, Professor and Lecturer, University of Sydney Law School. 572 U. MIAMI INT'L & COMP. L. REV. V. 23 I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 573 II. BOARDS OF DIRECTORS IN AUSTRALIA’S LISTED 582 COMPANIES ............................................................... 582 A. ROLES OF BOARDS ................................... 583 B. BOARD SIZE AND COMPOSITION .............. 588 III. HISTORICAL MILESTONES ................................... 600 A. THE BOSCH COMMITTEE REPORT AND THE ASX’S FIRST DISCLOSURE REGIME . 600 B. THE ASX’S ‘IF NOT, WHY NOT’ DISCLOSURE REGIME SINCE 2003 .......... 612 C. POST-GFC RE-REGULATION: BOARD DIVERSITY AND EXECUTIVE PAY ............ 617 D. DEVELOPING CASE LAW ON DIRECTORS’ DUTIES .................................................... 627 IV. DEFINING INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS ................ 632 V. ASSESSING THE IMPACT AND ROLES OF IDS IN AUSTRALIA ......................................................... 648 A. ECONOMETRIC STUDIES OF NED OR ID IMPACT ON CORPORATE PERFORMANCE IN AUSTRALIA ............... 648 B. OTHER EMPIRICAL RESEARCH INTO IDS IN AUSTRALIA ......................................... 662 VI. WHERE TO NEXT? .................................................. 665 APPENDIX: THE CAUTIONARY TALE OF HIH - ’INDEPENDENT’ DIRECTORS AS LEMONS ........... 678 As the cigar smoke in the boardrooms clears, the comfortably reclining figures are instantly revealed as being of two types: the executive directors who run the business and take the rap, and the non-executive directors who, having read their papers carefully for the pre- lunch board meeting, asked their statutory 2016 THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS IN AUSTRALIA 573 question, and enjoyed a reasonable rib of beef, are ready to depart blamelessly to their bank, chambers, farm or villa for another two months.1 [The aim] is actually to draw attention [to] developing it as an independent decision maker.2 I. INTRODUCTION Anglo-American corporate governance has long remained fixated on ensuring that the interests of dispersed shareholders in publicly listed corporations prevail over competing managerial interests.3 The main solution offered here has been to conceptualize directors as the stockholders’ agents for monitoring managers.4 But the rise of large institutional stockholders in global markets, especially in the United States,5 has cast doubt on this theory’s empirical 1 See Philip L.R. Mitchell, Non-Executive Directors, 6 BUS. L. REV. 173, 173- 174, (1985), cited in JEAN JACQUES DU PLESSIS ET. AL, PRINCIPLES OF CONTEMPORARY CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 101 (3d ed. 2014). 2 Charles Groome of Hong Kong Venture capital fund, Deep Knowledge Venture, on the appointment of VITAL – an algorithm – to the firm’s board of directors: Rob Wile, A Venture Capital Firm Just Named an Algorithm to its Board of Directors: Here's What it Actually Does, BUSINESS INSIDER (May 14, 2014), http://www.businessinsider.com.au/vital- named-to-board-2014-5 (emphasis added). 3 See, e.g., ADOLF BERLE & GARDINER MEANS, THE MODERN CORPORATION AND PRIVATE PROPERTY (1932). 4 See generally REINER KRAAKMAN ET AL., THE ANATOMY OF CORPORATE LAW 35, 307-9 (2d ed. 2009). 5 See Ronald J. Gilson & Jeffrey N. Gordon, The Agency Costs of Agency Capitalism: Activist Investors and the Revaluation of Governance Rights, 113 574 U. MIAMI INT'L & COMP. L. REV. V. 23 premise. Influential commentators now urge measures encouraging stockholders to take more active roles in corporate governance,6 or press more broadly for enhancing their rights in light of expansive directorial discretion.7 COLUM. L. REV. 863, 875 (2013) (by 2009 the largest 1,000 U.S. corporations had an average institutional holding of 73 percent); Ronald J. Gilson & Jeffrey N. Gordon, Agency capitalism: further implications of equity intermediation, RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON SHAREHOLDER POWER 32 (Jennifer G. Hill & Randall S. Thomas eds., 2015); Ronald J. Gilson & Jeffrey N. Gordon, Agency Capitalism: Further Implications of Equity Intermediation, 239/2014 EUROPEAN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE INSTITUTE (ECGI) – LAW WORKING PAPER (2014); 456 STANFORD LAW AND ECONOMICS OLIN WORKING PAPER (2014); 461 COLUMBIA LAW AND ECONOMICS WORKING PAPER (2014). In this connection, activist funds serve as useful catalysts for corporate change. With over $120 billion under management, the consequences are meaningful, particularly in the United States where eighty per cent of activist interventions occur. An Investor Calls, THE ECONOMIST (Feb. 7, 2015), http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21642175-sometimes-ill- mannered-speculative-and-wrong-activists-are-rampant-they-will- change-american. Elsewhere, The Economist reports that since 2009, fifty per cent of S & P 500 companies have had a “big activist fund” on their share register, with one in seven of these companies being subjected to an “activist attack.” Capitalism’s Unlikely Heroes, THE ECONOMIST (Feb. 7, 2015), http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21642169-why- activist-investors-are-good-public-company-capitalisms-unlikely-heroes. 6 See Paul Edelman, Randall Thomas, & Robert Thompson, Shareholder Voting in the Age of Intermediary Capitalism, 87 S. CAL. L. REV. 1359 (2014); cf. Chief Justice Leo Strine, Can We Do Better by Ordinary Investors? A Pragmatic Reaction, to the Dueling Ideological Mythologists of Corporate Law, 114 COLUM. L. REV. 449 (2014) cited in Robert B. Thompson, Whether Directors Must Maximize Shareholder Wealth-and the American Connection to the Increased Role of Activist Shareholders, (paper presented at Supreme Court of New South Wales Annual Corporate Law Conference, Sydney, Australia, Sept. 8, 2015) (on file with the authors). 7 See generally Lucian Bebchuk, The Case for Increasing Shareholder Power, 18 HARV. L. REV. 833 (2005). 2016 THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS IN AUSTRALIA 575 Others insist, albeit through the lens of stockholder wealth maximization and while allowing for significant differences among countries, that the board should retain significant decision-making powers.8 In this ongoing debate, the issue of board composition has largely escaped sustained academic attention.9 The conventional wisdom advocates that the board should be predominantly non-executive and “independent,” especially when exercising key functions where conflicts of interest may surface (such as conducting audits or nominations