We discussed recently here in Financial Regulation Matters that Edward Bramson, the activist investor attempting to change the direction within the British bank Barclays, was attempting to have his fellow shareholders approve his ascension to the Board of the Bank on account of wanting to stem the continued development of the investment arm of the bank. In this post, we will look at what happened and assess the latest news which shines a light on his reasoning. As was widely expected, Bramson lost his bid to join the Board . Only 13% of the votes cast were for Bramson’s resolution although, as stated above, this was widely expected. Whilst there was an unexpected development in the AGM – 30% of shareholders voted against its remuneration report – the focus on Bramson is important. The Guardian reports how opinion was split concerning Bramson’s motives, with some investors agreeing that there was a need to ‘ wake this board of directors up ’, but others stating that ‘bear in m...

Today’s post is a guest post by Jan Weir, a Barrister from Canada who specialises in Banking and Fraud and who also teaches Business Law at the University of Toronto. On many occasions here in Financial Regulation Matters , and in fact in society in general, we discuss elements of society that have been directly affected by the Financial Crisis, but only mention the Crisis in passing. Whilst this is not done to reduce the understanding that the Crisis devastated society, the passing time has allowed for the actual causes of the Crisis to become so engrained that they are rarely discussed anymore. So, in this guest post, Jan Weir helpfully provides a reflective account to discuss some of the underlying causes to the Crisis so that we can bring them back to the forefront of our thinking when assessing current events – the underlying sentiments and motivations have not changed. Trying to Help the Poor Caused the Financial Crisis As absurd as that sounds when put in a simple sen...