Corporate
Governance

The Corporate Governance team of Herrington Carmichael can help you not only to assess your own Corporate Governance but also the Corporate Governance risk of targets companies in case of investments or purchases. We can support you to develop and implement your Corporate Governance strategy in a manner bespoke to the needs of your company.

Based on a robust track record in Corporate Governance and corporate/commercial law our expertise can immediately be integrated into your Corporate Governance projects and support your organisation with boots on the ground.

We provide:

• Assessments of Corporate Governance risks
• Bespoke Corporate Governance frameworks
• Clear presentations and training for boards or internal staff

Boards are responsible and accountable for the strategy and its implementation in a company. A first step to ensure compliance with this responsibility is to get an independent assessment of the current documentation, structures, way of decision making and information flow. Based on our experience and knowledge we can help you in an efficient way to provide such an assessment which is a starting point of a better organisation so you can focus on your business and prepares you for the future strategy of your company.

Similarly, we help you to properly respond to questions by different stakeholders like investors, banks, supervisors, rating agencies or investigators about your Corporate Governance, which will save you time and effort.

We also help investors with their due diligence into a target company’s Corporate Governance to give them comfort as how the company operates and that they can take a sound investment decision.

To make sure that the strategy set by the board is reaching all levels of the company, clear structures need to be in place. This entails the development of:

• Clear roles and responsibilities to avoid any overlaps or gaps, which lead to a waste of resources and are slowing down of the business;
• Clear and transparent structures to make sure that necessary tasks are delegated properly down and incidents are escalated properly to give the board the ability to deal with issues in a timely manner;
• Proper decision-making processes to ensure that every decision maker in the company is equipped with the right prerequisites to make decisions in such a way to avoid unnecessary risks.

We can support with the development of bespoke frameworks for the requirements of your specific company in alignment with your overall strategy including tailored Corporate Governance principles, position descriptions and delegation and decision-making principles.

The board of directors has the overall responsibility for the company and needs to act in the best interest of the company. In order to do that, they need to be collectively and individually suitable to manage the company. We can:

• Develop and provide tailored induction training for newly appointed directors;
• Develop and provide tailored development training on Corporate Governance for individual directors or the whole board;
• Support with board effectiveness evaluations.

In addition, it is vital that all staff of the company are aware of the Corporate Governance structures and processes of the company. We are happy to:

• Develop and provide for your employees or to senior management induction or development training on Corporate Governance.

Our services cover the legal technicalities that underpin corporate decisions, by drafting the necessary paperwork to ensure that businesses comply with their statutory requirements and function legally. These services include, Companies House filings, drafting board and shareholder minutes and resolutions, reconstituting and maintaining statutory registers, and acting as registered office.

It’s like building a house. You have an idea of what you want, but you need advisors to assess the structure, comply with buildings regulations and ensure the property doesn’t collapse. Our CoSec team are like those advisors. We establish the bureaucratic scaffolding necessary for decisions to function legally and complicitly and recommend courses of proceedings to meet specified goals.

• Ultra national principles like the OECD Principles on Corporate Governance, EBA Guidelines on Internal Governance, and BCBS Corporate Governance Principles for Banks.
• National laws, such as Companies Act,
• Soft law, like UK Corporate Governance Code, the Wates Corporate Governance Principles for Large Private Companies
• Individual Articles of Association