Hot Topics

Global financial crisis – Directors’ Alert: Survival or success?
After more than a year of weak global economic performance and difficult business conditions, organizations around the world are looking optimistically to the future. Are you ready to deal with the key issues that your board will be faced with?

Focus on compensation
An enterprise’s executive compensation strategy is often the most visible access of its corporate governance. Despite the area’s sensitivity, it frequently isn’t overseen or controlled with the same rigour as other, perhaps ultimately less mission-critical aspects of an enterprise’s activities.

Reporting performance – investors are seeking a clear understanding of a company’s performance
Many investors are trying to assess whether the economic recovery is “real,” whether an individual company’s performance is “real,” or whether it is dependent on government-funded stimulus programs and low interest rates that will fizzle when the stimulus funding runs out and interest rates rise.

Risk intelligent governance – developing an effective risk intelligence culture
The challenge in risk intelligence is the creation of a culture that fosters the ability to consistently make “appropriate” risk decisions in terms of both value preservation and value creation.

Compliance issues
Over the past decade, the Canadian and global regulatory environments have undergone considerable changes after an array of new rules were introduced in the wake of some significant accounting scandals. It appears likely that the pace of change is will continue, therefore, companies need to monitor the robustness of their compliance processes to ensure that they are meeting all of the applicable regulations while they manage the transition and changes that occur in the capital markets, the economy and their operating environments.

XBRL: Standardizing business reporting language
For corporations eager to remain on the leading edge of financial statement transparency, the time is ripe to adopt a standard description and classification system for financial data — known as taxonomies — for your public disclosures.