沃尔玛董事会的自我救赎
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沃尔玛董事会正在成为公众关注的焦点，而且在相当一段时间内都将如此。 2005年前后，沃尔玛管理层终止了对其墨西哥公司存在的贿赂行为的内部调查。目前，该公司正因此遭受调查，除了可能的法律后果之外，沃尔玛还面临声誉扫地和潜在的管理人事变动的危机。由于公司高管也被怀疑牵涉其中，沃尔玛董事会需要查出当时到底发生了什么，以及当时都有哪些人知情并且采取了什么措施。 斯坦福大学商学院企业监管研究项目主任戴维•拉克表示，“这种形势对董事会来说真的很糟糕。董事会具有进行风险管理的职责，并且要关注所有这种问题。但问题是，作为董事会成员，你无法亲自开展内部审计。你不得不依赖管理者们为你提供信息。” 《纽约时报》上周末报道了沃尔玛的贿赂案及当时该公司的调查情况，并称现任首席执行官迈克尔•杜克及其前任李•斯考特都是知情者，斯考特当时就已担任首席执行官，而杜克当时则主管国际业务。沃尔玛昨天发表声明表示，公司的审计委员会在半年前曾针对这些问题进行了内部调查。 除了斯考特和杜克两人都是沃尔玛董事会成员这一事实以外，该报道并未提及其他公司董事是否知晓此事。这使得审计委员会（由独立董事组成）在当前调查中所起的主导作用变得很关键。沃尔玛公司的一位发言人拒绝发表评论。 在这份声明中，沃尔玛表示公司新设了一个全球反腐败合规官职位，以加强全球所有市场的《反海外腐败法案》（FCPA）合规工作。担任这一职位的官员负责监督沃尔玛驻海外市场的五位FCPA合规主管。 彭尼公司（J.C. Penney）前任首席执行官艾伦•科斯特鲁姆曾经在2007年至2010年之间担任沃尔玛董事会成员。他表示记不起担任董事期间曾讨论过FCPA合规风险问题。他说，“公司董事会议程上有很多紧急事项。有太多的事情需要讨论，所以我们不会去讨论那些以前从未发生过的事情。”他补充说，“现在此事已提上日程，沃尔玛会竭尽全力修正此问题。” 沃尔玛董事会包括不少顶级商界精英，比如可口可乐公司（Coca-Cola）前任首席执行官道格拉斯•达福特、百事可乐公司（PepsiCo）前任首席执行官史蒂芬•瑞尼蒙德以及风险投资机构Accel Partners的经理合伙人吉姆•布雷耶。谷歌公司（Google）负责本土和地图业务的副总裁玛丽莎•麦尔将作为董事会候选成员于6月1日参加最近一次的董事会成员增补选举。 董事会的若干其他成员来自高盛公司（Goldman Sachs）、新闻集团（News Corporation）、和绿衫咖啡烘焙公司（Green Mountain Coffee Roasters）。因为这几家公司最近也被审查，理论上来说，他们应该能让沃尔玛更好地认识到如何才能顺利度过这一危机。 |
Wal-Mart's board is about to step into the spotlight -- and don't expect the glare to subside any time soon. Along with possible legal consequences, the retailer faces reputational risks and potential managerial disruption over allegations that executives shut down an internal bribery investigation into its Mexico operations in the middle of last decade. Facing claims that senior leaders were involved, Wal-Mart's (WMT) board will need to determine what happened, and who knew what and when. "This is one of these nightmare situations for the board," said David Larcker, director of the corporate governance research program at Stanford's business school. "You have a responsibility to do risk management and pay attention to all these kinds of issues, but the problem is that, as a board member, you're not out there doing the internal auditing. You have to rely on information provided by managers." Wal-Mart said in a statement yesterday that its audit committee launched an internal inquiry six months ago into the bribery and investigation issues reported by the New York Times over the weekend -- issues that the Times alleges current CEO Mike Duke and former CEO Lee Scott were aware of. Scott was CEO at the time, and Duke was head of international. Beyond the fact that Scott and Duke both sit on Wal-Mart's board, the story did not report that any of the company's directors were aware of the situation. This makes it critical that the company's audit committee, comprised of independent directors, take the lead on the current inquiry. A spokesperson for Wal-Mart declined to offer comment for this story. In its statement, Wal-Mart said it had strengthened its global Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bribery law compliance processes, creating a new global FCPA compliance officer role that will oversee five compliance directors based in global markets. Allen Questrom, former CEO of J.C. Penney (JCP) who served on the Wal-Mart board from 2007 to 2010, said he doesn't recall discussing FCPA risk during his time as a director. "People have on the agenda things that are immediate," he said. "There are so many things you have to discuss that you don't discuss things that have never happened to you before." He added, "Now that it's on the table, they'll bend over to correct it." Wal-Mart's board includes a collection of A-listers, such as former Coca-Cola (KO) CEO Douglas Daft, former CEO of PepsiCo (PEP) Steven Reinemund, and Accel Partners manager partner Jim Breyer. Marissa Mayer, Google's (GOOG) vice president of local and maps, will stand for election as the latest addition to the board on June 1. The board members' other directorships include a handful of companies that have recently come under scrutiny -- Goldman Sachs (GS), News Corporation (NWS), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) -- which, ideally, should give the group a decent sense of how they should navigate the turbulence that's ahead. |
