The week in GRC: Judge denies Musk bid to reinstate 2018 pay package and Trump wants ex-commissioner Atkins to chair SEC

– CNBC reported that Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares resigned amid increasingly ‘different views’ between the executive and the board, the company said. The world’s fourth-largest carmaker said its board accepted Tavares’ resignation. His departure was effective immediately. Stellantis said that its process to appoint a new CEO is ‘well under way’ and that it expects to conclude the search during the first half of next year. Until then, the company said it will establish a new interim executive committee led by chair John Elkann.

‘Stellantis’ success since its creation has been rooted in a perfect alignment between the reference shareholders, the board and the CEO. However, in recent weeks different views have emerged, which have resulted in the board and the CEO coming to today’s decision,’ Henri de Castries, Stellantis’ senior independent director, said in a release.

A Stellantis spokesman declined to disclose any additional information on the resignation.

Tavares’ resignation came less than two months after the company announced he would retire at the end of his contract in early 2026.

– Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger retired, The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported. The company named CFO David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, general manager of Intel’s client computing group, as interim co-CEOs. The board has formed a search committee to find a permanent successor to Gelsinger.

Gelsinger had been Intel’s CEO since February 2021. Intel said Holthaus also has been appointed to the newly created position of CEO of Intel products. Frank Yeary has been named interim executive chair, the company said.

– Later in the week, Intel announced the appointment of two new directors with significant semiconductor manufacturing experience as the company ramps up the search process for Gelsinger’s successor, CNBC reported. Former ASML CEO Eric Meurice and Microchip Technology interim CEO Steve Sanghi will join Intel’s board effective immediately. Their appointments mean that Intel’s board once again has directors with semiconductor experience, filling a gap created by the departure of Cadence Design Systems chair Lip-Bu Tan in August.

Intel declined to comment on what committees the two new directors would join and the nature of the search process.

– The Guardian reported that a group of countries has said that binding global targets to cut plastic production must be at the center of any continuing negotiations on the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic waste. Talks that were supposed to be the last before the treaty was signed ended without agreement in the early hours of Monday in a deadlock over the inclusion of cuts to plastic production between so-called ambition countries and fossilfuel states, which object to any reductions in production.

More than 100 countries supported a draft text that included legally binding global reductions in plastic production and phasing out certain chemicals and single-use plastic products. But negotiators conceded defeat following resistance from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia to production reductions, according to statements in their submissions to the treaty talks.

In response to the failure of the talks, countries pushing for production cuts continued to call for legally binding reductions. Eighty-five countries and political blocs, including the EU, signed a declaration committing to stand up for ambition in the treaty.

– According to CNBC, Elon Musk lost his bid to get his 2018 Tesla CEO pay package reinstated when a Delaware judge upheld her previous ruling that the compensation plan was improperly granted. The package, which is worth roughly $56 bn, was the largest compensation plan in US history for a public company executive.

In January, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick voided the pay plan, ruling that Musk had individually ‘controlled Tesla’ and dictated the terms of his compensation to a board that didn’t fairly negotiate. She called the process leading to approval of that pay plan ‘deeply flawed’.

Tesla conducted a shareholder vote in June at its AGM asking investors to ‘ratify’ Musk’s 2018 CEO pay plan. Musk’s attorneys attempted to sway the judge to reverse her opinion after the trial, leaning on the results of that vote. ‘Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here,’ McCormick wrote in her opinion on Monday. ‘Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable.’

Tesla said in a post on social media platform X, which Musk owns, that it plans to appeal the ruling. Musk, in a separate X post, called the ruling ‘absolute corruption’.

– The Guardian reported that The Coca-Cola Company has been accused of quietly dropping a pledge to achieve a 25 percent reusable packaging target by 2030. In 2022, the company made a promise to have 25 percent of its drinks sold in refillable or returnable glass or plastic bottles, or in refillable containers that could be filled up at fountains or ‘Coca-Cola freestyle dispensers’.

But shortly before this year’s global plastics summit, the company deleted the page on its website outlining this promise and it no longer has a target for reusable packaging. Instead, its packaging targets now say it will ‘aim to use 35 percent to 40 percent recycled material in primary packaging (plastic, glass and aluminum), including increasing recycled plastic use to 30 percent to 35 percent globally.’ Its previous goal was to ‘use 50 percent recycled material in our packaging by 2030.’

Coca-Cola has been contacted by The Guardian for comment. It previously stated: ‘We care about the impact of every drink we sell and are committed to growing our business in the right way.’

– Washington, DC’s attorney general Brian Schwalb sued Amazon, accusing the company of secretly depriving residents in certain ZIP codes in the nation’s capital from access to Prime’s high-speed delivery, CNBC reported. The lawsuit alleges that since 2022 Amazon has ‘secretly excluded’ two ‘historically underserved’ DC ZIP codes from its expedited delivery service while charging Prime members living there the full subscription price.

‘Amazon is charging tens of thousands of hard-working Ward 7 and 8 residents for an expedited delivery service it promises but does not provide,’ Schwalb said in a statement. ‘While Amazon has every right to make operational changes, it cannot covertly decide that a dollar in one zip code is worth less than a dollar in another.’

An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement it’s ‘categorically false’ that its business practices are ‘discriminatory or deceptive.’

‘We want to be able to deliver as fast as we possibly can to every zip code across the country, however, at the same time we must put the safety of delivery drivers first,’ the spokesperson said. ‘In the zip codes in question, there have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages. We made the deliberate choice to adjust our operations, including delivery routes and times, for the sole reason of protecting the safety of drivers.’

– The AP reported that Donald Trump announced he intends to nominate crypto-currency advocate and former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins to chair the agency. Trump said Atkins, the CEO of Patomak Partners, was a ‘proven leader for common sense regulations.’

Atkins began his career as a lawyer and has a long history working in the financial markets sector, both in government and private practice. His work as an SEC commissioner started in 2002. He emphasized investor education and increased enforcement efforts against those who steal from investors over the internet, manipulate markets, engage in Ponzi schemes and other types of fraud. At the same time, Atkins objected to tough penalties imposed on companies accused of fraudulent conduct, contending that they did not deter crime.