Monday, March 29, 2010

John Rogers: A Valued Investor in People and Progress

Feature
Agenda
March 29, 2010
Link (available to non-subscribers as a PDF here)













Editor's Note: This is the first of six profiles of this year’s Outstanding Directors. The Outstanding Directors program, a sister program to Agenda, awards recognition to a select group of directors annually. These directors are nominated by fellow board members for making a valuable contribution to their boardrooms and are selected by the Outstanding Directors Editorial Board.

A turtle is an unlikely symbol for a company founded by a 24-year-old. Why not the early bird? Almost three decades after John Rogers launched Ariel Investments, however, the Chicago-based mutual fund firm’s slow and steady growth to more than 70 employees and $4.8 billion in assets under management has made its logo’s reference to the classic Aesop fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” look almost prescient.

As an investor, Rogers models his approach after the long-term, value-oriented strategy of famed investor Warren Buffett. As a director at McDonald’s, Aon and Exelon, the Ariel chairman and CEO is credited with bringing a similar perspective to the boardroom.

“John is a major talent and an asset for all of Aon,” says former Qwest Communications chairman and CEO Dick Notebaert, who serves alongside Rogers on the Aon board. 

Much that Rogers has accomplished as a director — whether delving into the details of global compliance, fostering diversity or sharing his special insights into Wall Street and Washington — can be traced back to his lifelong love affair with investing.

When board colleagues want to know how a particular disclosure might play on Wall Street, Rogers provides an objective sounding board. “He sees things through the eyes of an investor,” says Notebaert. “His financial background is a major plus.”

Given Ariel’s value bent, the 2008 financial crisis hit its funds especially hard. True to the firm’s founding metaphor, though, the long-term results remain strong. Over the past 10 years, the fund has ranked sixth in its Morningstar category, and it has bounced back, with its performance over the past 12 months ranked number one.

That track record is not lost on people who work with Rogers. “He’s very bright, and everyone respects the business he has built,” says John Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon. “His experiences in the investment arena are totally relevant to us. His championing of diversity is very important to us.”

What's the Matter With Sweden?

Feature
Pitchfork
March 29, 2010
Link



















The first time the Knife got money from the Swedish Arts Council was in 2001, for their self-titled debut album. The electro-pop duo received 45,000 Swedish kronor (SEK), or about $6,327-- "pretty standard for albums back then," says lead singer Karin Dreijer Andersson. Statens Kulturråd, as the arts council is known, awarded funding for the Knife in 2006, too. That time, Andersson (who also records as Fever Ray) and brother Olof Dreijer received 80,000 SEK, or $11,248, through label Rabid as tour support for their first-- and, so far, only-- U.S. shows. "We have a long history of social democratic culture in Sweden, which I think has made this possible," Andersson explains.

Swedish taxpayers' investment in the Knife led to quick results. The New York Times' Jon Pareles described one 2006 show at New York's Webster Hall as "an elaborately synthetic production that flaunted technology but conjured emotion." That same year, the Knife's Silent Shout was frequently mentioned in critics' year-end lists (including finishing #1 in our own list). Sweden's political culture, however, is shifting. In the September 2006 general election, a center-right coalition toppled the long-dominant Swedish Social Democratic Party. "Everything is getting more up to the individual," Andersson says. "Taxes get lower and poor people get even less money. We have an election in September, and I hope there will be an end to this."

Scandinavian social democracies have come under the microscope amid the U.S. debate over President Barack Obama's domestic agenda. In February 2009, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly asked, "Do we really want to change America into Sweden?" Last December, at a Tea Party protest in Washington, D.C., a handmade sign went further: "Norwegian socialists like what they see in Obama. WE DO NOT."

As American musicians wait to see whether Obama's landmark health-care legislation-- finally signed last week after a year of heated debate and concessions-- will do anything to relieve their worries about surging medical costs, countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Canada make it easier for bands to focus on the creative arts by providing not only universal health care, but often cold hard cash, too. Every year, millions in public money goes toward recording, artist promotion, videos, venues, touring, festivals-- even showcases at South By Southwest or CMJ Music Marathon. "Things that are not possible are made possible," notes Ólöf Arnalds, an Icelandic singer/multi-instrumentalist who has benefited from government support. Over the past decade, Sweden has, perhaps not coincidentally, become a major player in global indie music. So, too, has Canada, which also enjoys government support for pop music.

It's enough to make your average econo-jamming U.S. touring band drool with envy. But taxpayer funding for music isn't right for everybody. In some countries, public funding is a way to promote national culture in the face of American music's commercial dominance; in places like Sweden and the UK, it's also a means of protecting a prized national export. Nearly everywhere, more funding goes to classical forms like opera or ballet than to what is loosely called "rhythmic music." When bands do get money, there are always debates over which ones really deserve the support. Of course, this is all possible only because taxpayers are willing to fork over what, to Americans, would be exorbitant sums: Total tax revenue in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark runs as high as nearly 50% of GDP, compared with the UK 38%, Canadian 33%, and U.S. 28%, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And, just as U.S. health-care legislation has constantly hovered over the brink, public arts spending programs in these nations are always at risk of being slashed.

Norway, as it happens, is one of the most active government sponsors of music. The Norwegian Arts Council has budgeted 126.3 million Norwegian kroner (NOK), or $21.4 million, for music in 2010. Similarly, the Fund for Lyd Og Bilde (fund for audio and video) raised its budget for 2010 to 28.7 million NOK ($4.9 million), up 5.5% from 27.2 million NOK ($4.6 million) in 2009. Each organization has provided money for touring and recording to the likes of should-be pop star Annie, singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche, and artists on such respected Norwegian labels as Rune Grammofon, as well as everything from children's hip-hop to jazz to extreme metal. "A lot of this money is well spent in smaller European countries, where you have to have some help at times to try to be exported to the rest of Europe," says Jonas Prangerød, spokesman for Øya Festival, which receives a multi-year grant from the arts council.

Public funding helped Joakim Haugland shape the Smalltown Supersound label he started at age 15 into an Oslo-based juggernaut that has released music by Annie, Lindstrøm, Bjørn Torske, the Whitest Boy Alive, and Jaga Jazzist, plus Americans Sunburned Hand of Man and Sonic Youth. He credits the Norwegian fund for audio and video with giving a big boost to the operation. "I took the whole route with cassettes and then 7"s and some LPs and some CDs, but it took quite a while before I got support from this fund," Haugland says. "The first band that I got it for was a band with my brother in it, and the reason I got the money is because I'm from the south of Norway-- a really small town. That was district politics; they want to stimulate districts outside of the big cities. It was not much money, but it allowed me to make my first proper CD, which earned a little money so I could put out the next one."

The early foundation of the fund was a tax on blank cassette tapes in the 1980s, Haugland says. In Norway and other countries with taxpayer grants for music, a committee of people from the industry generally decides who will get the awards. Haugland, like the Knife's Andersson, views the funding of music and culture in Norway as closely related to the whole idea of Scandinavian social democracy-- "you know, the state involved in a good way," he says. "From the outside, there seem to be some people in America afraid of the state. But we're not. Because Norway is divided: There's the state, and there's private ownership of stuff. I think there's a perfect mix. It's not communism, but it's not the U.S. We're somewhere in between."

Sweden has its own assortment of groups that sponsor the arts and culture. When it comes to music, the Swedish Arts Council is the body that awards money to music ensembles, orchestras, and other groups, while the Swedish Arts Grants Committee makes awards to individual artists. The Swedish Arts Council grants about 11.5 million SEK ($1.65 million) each year to about 145 music groups out of 250 that apply, plus about 24 million SEK ($3.3 million) to venues, 222 million SEK ($30.9 million) to regional music organizations, and 64 million SEK ($8.9 million) to Concerts Sweden, says Hasse Lindgren, an administrative officer specializing in music; Concerts Sweden, however, is in its final year. The Swedish Arts Grants Committee allocates about 19 million SEK ($2.7 million) to musicians annually. There's also Export Music Sweden, which organized two all-Swedish SXSW showcases with the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Austin, Texas.

In Sweden, labels apply for recording funding twice a year, and that money pays for only part of the recording, not the full budget, says Martina Ledinsky of Stockholm-based Razzia Records, which has used grant money toward releases by Hello Saferide, Firefox AK, Dundertåget, and Joel Alme. "When I received the recording funding for my second album, Waiting for the Bells, from Kulturrådet it enabled me to use a real strings orchestra and I could spend more time in a very good studio with a good producer, Mattias Glavå," Alme says.

Nevertheless, not all labels expect to receive support-- including Alme's former patrons, Sincerely Yours (home to the Tough Alliance and jj). None of its artists have gotten government funding, the label says, and Lindgren confirms. "There's one which you apply for but we'd never get that," a Sincerely Yours representative says, in the label's usual cryptic, anonymous way. "We're too much in our own little world I guess."

Could the best health-care policy be a strong arts and culture policy? Lindgren invokes the possibility. "There is a big debate in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark," he says. "In which way do cultural experiences help you in health? So for instance, there's a project here in Sweden where doctors actually can prescribe going to the opera to help you get well. For sure, music and art can help people."

Denmark, too, has its Danish Ministry of Culture, Danish Arts Foundation, Danish Arts Council, Danish Arts Agency, and Musix Export Denmark. The Danish Music Act of 1971 established the "arms-length principle," where politicians decide upon a framework but do not get involved in what is supported. Roskilde Festival and other music festivals, however, receive no support from the state, though by donating all profits to charity, Roskilde is excluded from certain taxes. "It is evident that the emphasis on supporting rhythmic music since 2000 has really borne fruit," Roskilde spokeswoman Christina Bilde observes. But she says there's still a desire for such music to be "recognized on equal terms with other kinds of music and other cultural expressions," financially and otherwise.

NEXT: Arts funding in Canada and the UK

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Goldfrapp - Head First

Album Review
Pitchfork
March 25, 2010
Link
6.6













Yup, another wardrobe change. Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have always valued style along with song, and on most of the fifth Goldfrapp album, Head First, pink spandex turns out to be a great look. Bringing 1980s roller-disco synth-pop motifs out of mothballs has given the UK duo their most immediately entertaining album since 2005 electro-glam juggernaut Supernature. The only problem: They fail to give each song a face as memorable as the overall album's Jane Fonda workout-video get-up.

Good thing Goldfrapp do spectacle like few else. No less a glamor lover than Adam Lambert was quoted recently saying he had wanted to work with the group for his debut, but couldn't because they were already busy with Christina Aguilera-- not exactly pop's dowdiest persona herself. Whether in the clown robes and animal masks of Goldfrapp's expert live shows, or the sharp-edged sound design of an eclectic discography, they treat pop as a form of not just communication, but presentation.

With sunny Van Halen synth tones, Xanadu-era Olivia Newton John optimism, and galloping Giorgio Moroder basslines, Head First marks as dramatic a shift from 2008's disappointing Seventh Tree as that album's moodily atmospheric folk did from the fembot stomp of Goldfrapp's prior two LPs (or those from the John Barry-soaked trip-hop of 2000 debut Felt Mountain). Alison's voice is still commanding, gaining a bit of Stevie Nicks huskiness while staying versatile enough to rise to a glassy peal or drop to a suggestive purr. So, too, are Gregory's electronics, from the fist-pumping opening trio of songs to the krautrock seduction and wordless vocal ambience on the second half.

First single "Rocket" shows Head First at its best, but it's also a reminder of where some of the other songs fall short. When Alison exhorts, "I've got a rocket/ You're going on it," the potential double entendre is obvious. This isn't a come-on, though; with suspicions about "how she got in the door uninvited" and a decisive "you're never coming back," it's a lot closer to a kiss-off. (Although not available on the album, Richard X's powerhouse remix is even better.)

Still, beyond "Rocket", few of the songs here are melodically or lyrically catchy enough to attain anything like the the popularity of the 80s songs they'll remind you of-- or of Goldfrapp's past highlights. An exception is "Hunt", which approaches the bedside intimacy of Beach House or White Hinterland through gorgeously breathy space disco. Another is "Shiny and Warm", full of Suicide-seeking synths and icy sensuality. Alas, a nine-song album doesn't leave much room for error. Goldfrapp remain excellent in the studio-- any future work they do for Aguilera or anyone else (they also recently scored the soundtrack for John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy) deserves watching-- and there's plenty of highly stylized fun to be had here. Just don't expect to remember many of the details when it's all over. You might be the best-dressed person at 80s dance night, but if there's nothing particularly noteworthy about you otherwise, nobody's going to recognize you out of costume.
 

Monday, March 22, 2010

Fyfe Dangerfield - Fly Yellow Moon

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 19, 2010
Link
4.7














All you need may be love, but love isn't all you need. Look at Fyfe Dangerfield. As lead singer for Guillemots, his swooping vocals helped lead the London four-piece to a Mercury Prize nomination for 2006's Through the Windowpane, a debut album overflowing with ideas and passion. Romantic grandeur and wide-eyed sincerity were part of Guillemots' early appeal, but that group's stylistic adventurousness and avant-garde impulses are all but gone on Dangerfield's solo debut, Fly Yellow Moon.

Instead we get syrupy sentimentality and drab earnestness. Fly Yellow Moon sticks to the modest, direct simplicity of classic 1970s singer-songwriter albums. Backed by piano, acoustic guitar, and in places orchestration that dimly recalls Guillemots' lushness, Dangerfield's voice still leaps tall buildings, while his words trade in schmaltzy clichés and his tunes too often fail to assert their own personality.

The problem definitely isn't a lack of feeling. The opening whoop of "When You Walk in the Room" sets the carefree, love-filled spirit nicely enough, and it's easy to believe Dangerfield when he sings, "I can't help it if I'm happy." Some of his former band's knack for atmosphere comes through occasionally, too. On the waltzing, acoustic "High on the Tide", children's chatter and seagull's squawks give a beach setting to Dangerfield's delicately voiced professions of happiness.

Fly Yellow Moon just can't quite solve that old problem: how to be mushy but not mundane. Dangerfield wants "to be near you all day" on the "Hallelujah"-ish "Barricades", to "put my hands around your heart" on the "No Woman No Cry"-ish "Livewire", and to "run circles around you" on the "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon"-ish "So Brand New". "Firebird" finds him wanting to re-enact music hall staple "Daisy Bell". I'm sure it's all very well-meaning, but it's also saccharine and, in places, a little embarrassing. Before his next outing, let's hope Dangerfield remembers that even Stevie Wonder, that maestro of happy love songs, eventually did "I Just Called to Say I Love You".
 

GM Completes Board Leadership Structure

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Agenda
March 15, 2010
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Prosecutors to Try New Course in KB Home Backdating Trial

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March 15, 2010
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US Companies Face New State Data Protection Rules

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March 15, 2010
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Deere’s Board Declassifies as Movement Spreads Steadily

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March 15, 2010
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Oxley: Supreme Court Unlikely to Overturn SOX

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March 15, 2010
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Eli Lilly Agrees to Add Four Ethics Executives

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March 15, 2010
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Black & Decker Assessed Director Independence Incorrectly: NYSE

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March 15, 2010
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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Broken Bells - Broken Bells

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 11, 2010
Link
7.2













It's been a while since Danger Mouse or the Shins did anything to change your listening habits, let alone your life. In the past decade, Danger Mouse's landmark Grey Album mash-up and membership in Gnarls Barkley helped anticipate indie rock's increasing openness to hip-hop and R&B crossovers. A couple of years earlier, James Mercer paved the way for future indie crossover success stories with the Shins' Garden State contribution and controversial Olympics-aired McDonald's commercial. That the pair's paths might eventually cross was more inevitable than unexpected.

Mercer and Danger Mouse's debut as Broken Bells is not quite up to the level of either's best projects, but in its own quiet way, it hits its marks. The pair first worked together on the David Lynch/Sparklehorse project Dark Night of the Soul, and Broken Bells picks up the sadsack spirit of that record-- it's a deceptively catchy album centered on personal loss. It's unclear whether we're supposed to trace Mercer's lyrical malaise to a shattered relationship with his band (Mercer split with Shins mates Marty Crandall and Jesse Sandoval in 2008), a lover, or both. But this much is certain: Something has ended.

In the album's brightest moments, there are enough swooning harmonies, replayable choruses, and psych-baked production elements that you might not even notice Mercer's dark thoughts. Besides, the singer is clearly attempting to move on here, taking advantage of this fresh setting to try on new looks: film-score orchestration and acid flange meet a Pet Sounds-like vocal odyssey on "Your Head Is on Fire"; "The Mall & the Misery" opens with Springsteen-ian Americana and then veers off into post-punk guitar stabs; "Sailing to Nowhere" is a horror-show waltz; and Mercer's nearly unrecognizable falsetto on album standout "The Ghost Inside" recalls the high, cracked croon of another Danger Mouse collaborator, Blur/Gorillaz singer Damon Albarn.

An early version of the record included a nicely gloomy song with Knife-like vocal effects that's been replaced by the sumptuous psych-pop balladry of "Citizen". "Trap Doors", already one of the album's catchiest songs, benefits from some extra synths and backing vocals, and "October" has a few new lyrics.

Still, unlike its creators' best prior accomplishments, Broken Bells doesn't seem prepared, or even attempting, to cross over. Nor does it feel like a new direction or outlet for either artist-- it's more of a nice detour. In one of the record's more cheerful moments, amid the shambling acoustic guitar and slithering keyboard of "October", he shares some helpful advice: "Don't run, don't rush, just float." It's what he and Danger Mouse do here, and while that's hardly a recipe for breaking new ground, the results are rarely less than pleasant.
 

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat the Devil's Tattoo

Album Review
Pitchfork
March 10, 2010
Link
4.0

 











As rock traditionalists go, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were a little bit ahead of their time. Sure, the California leather jacketers came up a few years after the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre, and more or less alongside Detroit garage-rockers like the White Stripes. But 2001 debut B.R.M.C. loudly heralded the rock-is-back swagger that would soon hit glossy magazines in the form of the Strokes, the Vines, and the Hives. As if that weren't enough, BRMC's stratosphere-pummel predicted not only the Jesus and Mary Chain reunion, the Magnetic Fields' Distortion, and A Place to Bury Strangers, but also last year's Verve-scale electro-shoegaze anthems by the Big Pink.

Here in the future, though, the sneering young dudes who once asked "Whatever Happened to My Rock'n'Roll" now bear all the telltale signs of a band desperately flailing to live up to the dangerousness of their band name. In 2005, that meant divisive folk-blues change-up Howl. In 2008, it meant not-even-divisive insomniac-wank instrumental album The Effects of 333. Sixth studio outing Beat the Devil's Tattoo is already getting billed as the one that brings all these prodigal sons' (and daughters'-- ex-Raveonette Leah Shapiro is now on drums) stylistic detours back home. It kind of is, but if BRMC's sound has cohered, their songwriting has unfortunately done the opposite.

So yeah, Beat the Devil's Tattoo assembles BRMC's full arsenal of swamp-stomp riffage, chain-gang acoustic blues, rawk-Spiritualized psych-gospel, endlessly repeated gothic nonsense, and effects-geek pedal farts. And no, of course, originality isn't necessarily a prerequisite for rock'n'roll fun times. So if someone apathetically intoning about whether he wants to "feel love" on a midtempo Velvet Underground guttersnipe castoff called "Evol" (yup) is enough to make you remember that, oh my gosh, you wanna feel love, then who am I to argue? Plus BRMC can sound surprisingly pretty when finding the tear in Ryan Adams' blandly folksy beer ("The Toll", "Sweet Feeling"); in a Grand Funk/Free way, their bluesy proto-punk jams ("Conscience Killer", "Shadow's Keeper") or mythological T. Rex boogie ("River Styx") can be mookishly satisfying-- big dumb fun.

There's a fine line, however, between "big dumb fun" and "insulting your intelligence." The Ride-like whooshes of "Mama Taught Me Better" (main lyric: "It brings me down"), are one thing, but finale "Half State" stretches the 1990s neopsych pedal play to an utterly excruciating 10 minutes. Witchy-woman screamer "Aya" and vaguely political lurcher "War Machine" feel like they were probably already somewhere in this band's catalog. And there's little fun for anyone, dumb or otherwise, on piano-pop comedown "Long Way Down". Besides, BRMC already had a release that brings together all their disparate elements: last year's solid, strobe-lit DVD/CD package Live, which actually has some memorable songs. Chalk it up to another case of being ahead of their time.
 


Liars - Sisterworld

Album Review
SPIN
March 2010
Link
8/10







American psychos go on SoCal orchestral spree.

When in Rome, sack it. That's been Liars' m.o., whether arting up Brooklyn post-punk with witchy concepts or conquering German abstraction in Berlin. The globe-trotting trio's fifth album is a total Los Angeles record, but not the Tom Petty, good-vibes kind. Sisterworld veers between frenzy and foreboding, exploring the City of Angels' demonic side, from Charles Manson to Bret Easton Ellis, while producer Tom Biller adds richly detailed Hollywood orchestration. When frontman Angus Andrew howls over discordant guitars on "The Over­achievers," "L.A." sounds a lot like "help me."
 

Tanlines - Real Life

Track Review
Pitchfork
March 2, 2010
Link
8
 












In an interview a couple of years ago, Swedish electronic pop duo the Tough Alliance, asked what (if anything) they're looking for, answered simply, "Reality." Now, past TTA remixers Tanlines have named the first single from their forthcoming Settings EP "Real Life", though as far as I can tell that phrase appears nowhere in the song's lyrics. Not that the Brooklyn-based duo of ex-Don Cabellero/Storm and Stress man Eric Emm and former Professor Murder-er Jesse Cohen are being elusive here. As with Delorean or Cut Copy at their catchiest, "Real Life" is neon-synthed pop you could imagine going over equally well at a dance party or, seriously, a sporting event. Echoing in there amid all the sproingy bass lines and calypso-calibrated percussion, Emm's no-frills voice at first might seem like the weakest part, but it's also what sells the song's emotional vulnerability. "It was a past life thing," he repeats, on one of those swooning choruses you don't realize you love until you hear somebody else play them in a public forum. And then, with an air of sad finality: "It wasn't anything at all." TTA might claim to "know a place where diamonds never fade away," but Tanlines know nothing gold can stay. For real.
 

Delaware Court Upholds Net Operating Loss Poison Pill

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March 8, 2010
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Grasso Pay Controversy Won’t Die

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March 8, 2010
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Did Enron’s Skilling Get a Fair Trial?

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March 8, 2010
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GM Names Director, and Former Analyst, as Vice Chairman

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March 1, 2010
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In BofA Settlement, SEC Steps Into Governance Debate: Expert

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March 1, 2010
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Genzyme CEO Job Faces Pressure From Icahn

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March 1, 2010
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Wells Fargo, CVS, Bristol-Myers Adopt ‘Say on Pay’

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March 1, 2010
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Federal Judge Leaves Law Firm Conflict Case to Del. Court

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March 1, 2010
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SEC Advisory Panel Considers Back-Up Plan on Majority Voting

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March 1, 2010
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Regional Company Shows How Succession Planning Could Open Up

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March 1, 2010
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SEC Takes Step Toward Global Accounting Convergence

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March 1, 2010
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