– Reuters reported that, according to people familiar with the matter, Anson Funds is preparing for a boardroom fight at Match Group and plans to nominate several directors to the online dating company’s 10-member board. Anson has been pressing the parent company of dating sites Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid for more than a year to rethink capital allocation, cut costs and consider a strategic review of its MG Asia business, the people said. The investor has also raised concerns about Match’s governance and pushed for management to refine its corporate strategy, the people said.
A Match representative said the company’s board was committed to ‘good corporate governance and to protecting the interests of its stockholders.’ The representative said: ‘Under the leadership of our CEO Spencer Rascoff, appointed last month, Match Group is intensely focused on growing our business and generating shareholder value with the oversight of our skilled and experienced board.’
A representative for Anson declined to comment.
– According to The Wall Street Journal, President Trump’s pause on enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) has caused concern in some quarters that the decades-long effort to curb corruption in the US will be rolled back. But continued enforcement of similar anti-bribery laws in other jurisdictions and the reputational risks for those seen to be skirting the law should still motivate companies to remain compliant, experts say.
Compliance professionals say companies should continue their efforts to comply with the FCPA and take advantage of the change in enforcement priorities to remediate any breaches. Bribery remains a crime in the US and Trump’s executive order doesn’t invalidate the FCPA. As a federal law, the FCPA has a statute of limitation of at least five years that could allow US regulators during a subsequent administration to charge a company for violations.
‘Most companies recognize the value of having compliance and the value of continuing to move forward with compliance [with the FCPA],’ said David Last, who was chief of the US Department of Justice’s FCPA unit during the Biden administration and now is a partner at Cleary Gottlieb.
– Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly increased spending on security for their top executives in 2024, with both citing increased threats after the murder last year of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Reuters reported that regulatory filings show. Johnson & Johnson is now providing executives with an armed driver and both companies have given executives home protection and a security detail for travel, according to their annual proxy statements. In previous years, those filings did not contain such specific details and this is the first time Eli Lilly has made security disclosures in its proxy statement.
Johnson & Johnson’s executives must now use an armed driver and a secure company vehicle for all travel after an internal security assessment conducted in December due to ‘increased threats,’ according to its filing. The company did not respond to Reuters when asked if they made the review after Thompson’s murder.
Similarly, Lilly introduced security services for top executives in 2024 for the first time, its regulatory filing showed. ‘These (security) costs are appropriate and necessary considering the current threat landscape,’ the company said.
– According to Reuters, the top UK financial regulators have dropped proposed new rules that were intended to increase diversity and inclusion in the industry and have mothballed a crackdown on non-financial misconduct, citing fears of imposing unnecessary regulatory burdens on firms. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority said they had no plans to follow a joint consultation with further regulation given industry feedback and pending changes to the law.
Sam Woods, CEO of the PRA, said his organization still believed an ‘appropriate focus’ on diversity and inclusion could benefit governance, decision-making and risk management across the sector but new requirements ‘could be seen as in tension’ with efforts to support competitiveness by reducing red tape on firms.
The UK government is moving to lighten the regulatory load on its financial services industry.
– Reuters reported that the US federal judiciary is conducting a review of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, a process it launched in the months before Trump returned to the White House aiming to eliminate DEI in the federal government and the private sector. US Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, chair of the US Judicial Conference’s executive committee, said a working group was in the midst of undertaking a review of the court system’s own DEI initiatives.
‘Obviously, the judiciary wants to make sure we’re following the law,’ said Sutton, who sits on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The working group’s efforts are separate from Trump’s own push through executive orders and other administration actions.
– Bloomberg reported that US Senator Bill Hagerty, R-Tennessee, introduced a bill that he says is designed to protect US companies from ESG regulations in Europe. ‘American companies should be governed by US laws, not unaccountable lawmakers in foreign capitals,’ Hagerty said in the proposal. ‘The [EU’s] ideologically motivated regulatory overreach is an affront to US sovereignty.’
The focus of Hagerty’s proposed bill is the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which seeks to hold large companies accountable for ESG violations and requires them to produce climate transition plans. Widespread opposition to CSDDD, both from within and outside the EU, led the European Commission to propose significant changes to the directive last month. The changes include dropping a planned civil liability clause that would have applied to all large companies doing business in the EU.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in January that he would be willing to consider ‘trade tools’ to retaliate against EU ESG rules.
– CNBC reported that Intel said it had appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO. Tan was previously CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software used by all the major chip designers, including Intel. He was an Intel board member but stepped down last year, citing other commitments. Tan is also rejoining Intel’s board.
The appointment closes a chaotic chapter in Intel’s history, as investors pressured the semiconductor company to cut costs and spin off businesses due to declining sales and an inability to crack the booming artificial intelligence market.
‘In areas where we have momentum, we need to double down and extend our advantage,’ Tan said in statement. ‘In areas where we are behind the competition, we need to take calculated risks to disrupt and leapfrog. And in areas where our progress has been slower than expected, we need to find ways to pick up the pace.’
Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
