我不知道你们怎么样，反正我已然晕头转向了。谷歌（Google）、沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）、新闻集团（News Corp），还有切萨皮克能源（Chesapeake Energy）。我们都知道绝对权力滋生腐败，但这些由创始人控制的上市公司对伦理道德的公然挑战依然令人震惊。

    更糟糕的是，这些公司不仅损害了自身和正在那里工作的人们，也降低了企业界整体的信誉。

    上月底《纽约时报》（New York Times）的调查性报道出炉后，在《财富》（Fortune）杂志2012年全球最受赞赏公司榜单中排名第24位的沃尔玛公司就深陷贿赂丑闻，现任和前任CEO都涉嫌隐瞒真相，董事会和审计委员会的监督职责也备受质疑。据沃尔玛最新的投票委托书显示，沃尔顿家族的创始人控制着约17亿股沃尔玛股票和近50%的投票权。尽管如此，多年来一直关注沃尔玛董事会独立性和监督力度的纽约市养老基金（New York City Pension Fund）仍提议对董事会的5名董事投反对票。沃尔玛没有回复采访要求。

    谷歌初步投票委托书显示，公司创始人在谷歌通过双重股权结构控制着约三分之二的投票权，而且，他们已经制定了计划继续确保这样的控制。

    上周末，《洛杉矶时报》（Los Angeles Times）报道称，谷歌获取私人信息并非像之前声称的那样只是个意外。这家摘得《财富》杂志最受赞赏公司榜眼头衔的公司在2010年的一篇博客中写道：“我们不慎在我们的软件中加入了搜集有效载荷数据样本的代码”

    但据上周五晚些时候谷歌发给美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）的报告显示，这项工作是经过深思熟虑的。报告披露，软件设计工程师将代码和设计文件草案都提交给了项目负责人，后者将文件分享给了谷歌街景团队的所有成员。谷歌安排了一名工程师“复查和调试”代码，多达5位工程师进行了测试，更有一位谷歌高层经理曾经要求从获取的数据中获得信息。

    一位谷歌发言人给我写了一封电子邮件称，这份报告表明谷歌并没有违法。但报告确实列明，谷歌故意妨碍了美国联邦通信委员会的调查，而且“包括加拿大、法国和荷兰在内的几个国家都已确定，谷歌搜集有效载荷数据的做法违反了它们的……法律法规。”

    “我们希望，现在我们可以把这个问题甩在身后，”上文提到的谷歌发言人在电子邮件中这样写道。他们或许真的可以如愿以偿。因为美国的监管机构看起来不够坚决，沃尔玛、新闻集团和切萨皮克的股东们追查的问题已让他们腾不出手脚，没空关注谷歌的新闻。我们只有这么多人手，他们这样告诉过我。

    I don't know about you, but my head is spinning. Google, Wal-Mart, News Corp, Chesapeake Energy. We all know absolute power corrupts, but the apparent level of ethical challenge at these public, founder-controlled companies is mind-boggling.

    Worse, these companies not only do damage to themselves and those that work there, they lower the level of trust in corporations overall.

    Wal-Mart, No. 24 on Fortune's list of World's Most Admired Companies, is knee-deep in a scandal over alleged bribery and a cover-up that implicates both the current and former CEO, and calls into question board and audit committee oversight, following investigative reporting by the New York Times last week. The Walton family founders control approximately 1.7 billion Wal-Mart (WMT) shares and nearly 50% of the voting rights according to the company's latest proxy. Nevertheless, the New York City Pension Fund, which has been concerned with Wal-Mart's board independence and oversight for years, is recommending a no vote on five of the board's members. Wal-Mart did not return a call seeking comments.

    At Google (GOOG), its founders control approximately two-thirds of the voting rights in a dual class share arrangement, according to the company's preliminary proxy, and they have plans to ensure that hold.

    Over the weekend the Los Angeles Times reported that Google's drive-by capture of personal nformation was not as inadvertent as Fortune's second-most admired company, originally made out. "We had mistakenly included code in our software that collected samples of payload data," a 2010 Google blog entry stated.

    But according to the FCC report that Google released late Friday, the work was a result of a "deliberate software design decision." The report shows that the engineer who devised the software submitted draft code and a draft design document to his project leaders, who shared his document with all members of the company's Street View team. Google assigned an engineer to "review and 'debug'" his code, five engineers tested it, and a Google senior manager asked for information from the captured data.

    A Google spokesperson wrote in an email to me that the report shows Google did not break the law. But the report states that Google deliberately impeded the FCC's investigation and that "several countries, including Canada, France and the Netherlands have determined that Google's collection of payload data violated their … laws and regulations."

    "We hope that we can now put this matter behind us," the Google spokesperson wrote me. And perhaps they'll be able to. U.S. regulators appear to be weak-willed, and shareholders chasing issues at Wal-Mart, News Corp., and Chesapeake Energy, among others, have their hands full and haven't focused on Google's news. We have only so much bandwidth, they've told me.

    英国议会上周发布的一份长达125页的报告称，新闻集团CEO鲁伯特•默多克“表现出故意无视，而且……弥漫在该组织从上至下的这种文化表明新闻集团缺乏有效的企业治理……鲁伯特•默多克和詹姆斯•默多克——应当做好准备，对此负责。”正如最新的投票委托书所示，鲁伯特•默多克控制着这家双重股权结构公司将近40%的投票权。新闻集团没有入选《财富》杂志的全球最受赞赏公司榜单，它也没有回复要求发表评论的电话和邮件。

    自从英国电话窃听丑闻爆发以来，“我们还没有看到鲁伯特•默多克提到的全面改革，而且在去年公司董事遭遇高票反对的局面后，新闻集团也没有做出任何改变。”美国基督教兄弟投资服务公司（Christian Brothers Investments）的社会责任投资副总监朱莉•坦纳告诉我说：“股东们需要看到董事会发生彻底改变。”基督教兄弟和地方养老基金论坛（Local Authority Pension Fund Forum）已经提交一份提案，要求设立独立董事。

    内森•卡明斯基金会（Nathan Cummings Foundation）的股东活动总监劳拉•坎普斯在一份电子邮件中告诉我说，丑闻爆出后，“我们给了该公司大约6个月的时间来对股东的严重不满作出回应……结果只看到一些象征性的改变……因此，我们决定提出建议，将双重股权结构合二为一。”

    上个月，新闻集团宣布，为遵从美国联邦通信委员会对海外投资者控制权的相关要求，公司将取消非美国股东的投票权，但不会利用这一做法增加默多克的投票权。坎普斯写到：“假如所有股票（包括A类股和B类股）都拥有投票权，该公司很可能就不会违反美国法律，也不必为遵从美国法律而被迫废止海外投资者的部分投票权。”

    最后一家值得一提的、由创始人经营的公司是切萨皮克，它也没有入围《财富》杂志全球最受赞赏公司榜单。上个月，路透社的调查性报道披露了与切萨皮克一项气井权益相关的贷款安排，显示对公司联合创始人兼CEO奥博尼•麦克克兰顿的监督不力，麦克克兰顿已于上周卸任董事会主席。上周三路透社的一则报道称，麦克克兰顿担任公司CEO的4年中，一直同创办切萨皮克的共同创始人汤姆•沃德暗中经营一只2亿美元的对冲基金。去年的投票委托书显示，沃德也已经获准参与这一气井权益计划。

    纽约市审计长办公室（New York City Office of the Comptroller）的企业治理执行总监麦克•加兰德表示，他“欢迎（切萨皮克）将CEO与董事长职位分离的迟到之举，但问题不只是董事会的领导。问题在于董事会本身。”纽约市养老基金已提议在切萨皮克实施“代理参与”（proxy access），允许未来的股东们通过官方代理提名董事。根据去年的投票委托书披露，切萨皮克的创始人没有股票投票控制权，因此上述提议可能有机会获得通过。富国银行（Wells Fargo）今年的“代理参与”议案获得高票通过。纽约市养老基金也在纳伯斯工业公司（Nabors Industries）提出了类似建议。切萨皮克没有回复要求发表评论的电子邮件。

    A 125-page British Parliament report released this week, says News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch "exhibited willful blindness and … this culture ... permeated from the top throughout the organisation and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation … Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch -- should ultimately be prepared to take responsibility." As of its last proxy filing, Rupert Murdoch controlled nearly 40% of the votes in the dual class share company. News Corp., (NWS) which doesn't appear on Fortune's most admired list, did not respond to a call and email seeking comments.

    Since the U.K. phone hacking scandal broke, "we haven't seen the sweeping changes Rupert Murdoch references, and News Corp. has done nothing about the board in the wake of high no votes against the members last year," Julie Tanner, assistant director of socially responsible investing at Christian Brothers Investments told me. "Shareholders need to see sweeping changes on the board." Christian Brothers and the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum have filed a shareholder proposal calling for an independent chair.

    Laura Campos, director of shareholder activities at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, wrote in an email to me that after the scandal broke, "we gave the company roughly six months to respond to the serious level of shareholder discontent … and saw only token changes … Thus we decided to submit a proposal calling for dual class unification."

    Last month, News Corp. announced it was stripping non-U.S. shareholders of their voting rights to meet FCC requirements on foreign control but would not use the move to increase Murdoch's voting position. Campos wrote "if ALL shares -- both class A and class B -- carried voting rights, the company would most likely not have been in violation of U.S. law and would not have been forced to suspend some of the voting rights of its foreign investors to remain in compliance with it."

    Our final founder-run company of note is Chesapeake Energy (CHK), which also doesn't make the Most Admired list. An investigation by Reuters last month into loans arrangements related to a well ownership scheme uncovered poor oversight of Chesapeake Energy co-founder and CEO Aubrey McClendon who was stripped of the Chair title this week. A new report from Reuters on Wednesday says that for four years as CEO, McClendon had been running a $200 million hedge fund on the side with his Chesapeake co-founder Tom Ward. According to last year's proxy, Ward was also allowed to participate in the well ownership program.

    Mike Garland, executive director for corporate governance at the New York City Office of the Comptroller, says while he "welcomes the belated move to separate the CEO and chair roles, the issues go beyond [just] the leadership of the board. The issue is the board." New York City pension funds have a proxy access proposal at Chesapeake, which would allow shareholders to nominate directors on the official proxy in future years. Based on last year's proxy disclosures, Chesapeake's founders don't control the share votes, so the proposal may have a shot. There was a fairly high vote in favor of proxy access at Wells Fargo (WFC) this year, and the New York City pension fund is introducing a similar proposal at Nabors Industries (NBR). Chesapeake did not respond to an email seeking comment.

    股东们在切萨皮克或许还能推动变革，但在沃尔玛、新闻集团、谷歌这样的公司，即使会出现变革，可能也会十分有限，而凯雷（Carlyle）和Facebook等公司的投资者还会面临一个风险，即股东在事实上无法对创始人问责。

    根据彭博社（Bloomberg）的数据，2006年，外界对沃尔玛的“司法麻烦”和“系统性违规”担忧愈演愈烈之际，挪威的全球养老基金以及瑞典的一家养老基金都抛售了这支股票。他们是作为受托人采取的行动，代人投资股票须审慎稳健。

    如果证交所不允许双重股权结构的公司或无实际投票权的股票上市，美国养老基金和投资管理公司的工作当然会简单些。但证交所没有动力采取这样的行动——除非事关资本市场体系。将这些股票纳入成分股的指数、以及承销这些股票的投资银行同样也没有动力这么做。但不管整个体系中的其他各方怎么做，审慎起见，代人投资者都不应投资那些他们不能有效实施控制权的公司。受托人有责任回避这样的股票，他们从委托人那里拿到了丰厚的管理费，必须保证这一点。

    不是说养老基金、共同基金和投资管理公司没有禁止投资股票黑名单（也就是他们从不投资的股票）。他们确实掌握着这样的名单。如今，受托人应该采取行动，在这份名单上加上无投票权的股票了。如果是在用别人的钱投资，当然可以慢慢来，不着急。但是，正如许多基金承认的那样，他们同时并没有足够的人手来监督手头持有的所有股票。

    本文作者埃莉诺•布洛克斯汉姆是董事会咨询机构价值联盟和企业管理管理联盟（The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance）的CEO。

    译者：老榆木

    While shareholders may be able to effect changes at Chesapeake, the ability to make change is severely limited if not impossible at firms like Wal-Mart, News Corp., and Google. Carlyle (CG) and Facebook investors will also face investment risks with practically no means to hold the founders accountable.

    In 2006, when concerns arose over Wal-Mart's "legal troubles" and "systematic violations," Norway's global pension fund and a Sweden-based pension fund sold their shares, according to Bloomberg. In so doing, they were acting as fiduciaries, concerned with the soundness and prudence of investing other people's money in the stock. 

    It would certainly make the job of pension funds and investment managers in the U.S. easier if exchanges refused to list dual class shares or shares with no effective voting privileges. But the exchanges have no incentive to do so -- other than concern for the capital markets system. So too with indices that include the stocks and investment banks that underwrite them. But no matter the actions of other parties in the system, as a matter of prudence, fiduciaries that invest other people's money should not be investing in companies where they cannot effectively exercise their rights of control. Fiduciaries are under an obligation not to invest in stocks like these, and they are paid well for ensuring they do not.

    It isn't as though pension funds, mutual funds, and investment managers don't have prohibited stock lists (i.e. stocks that they never invest in). They do. Now it's time fiduciaries stepped up to put shares without rights on their lists. It's easy to be patient if it's someone else's money. But, as many funds admit, they don't have the bandwidth to oversee all the stocks they own now anyway.

    Eleanor Bloxham is CEO of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance (http://thevaluealliance.com), a board advisory firm.