Corporate Governance Commission Plans Best-Practices Guidelines

ByJohn S. McClenahen Chaired by Peter G. Peterson, a former U.S. secretary of commerce and currently chairman of the Blackstone Group, and including Intel Corp. Chairman Andrew S. Grove and CSX Corp. Chairman John W. Snow, a new commission plans to examine corporate ethics practices and governance issues and then issue a series of best-practices guidelines. The commission is being assembled by the New York-based Conference Board, a business-research organization. "The American corporation is in crisis today and some of the toughest issues of corporate practice, like executive and director compensation and the balance of risks among management, shareholders, workers and creditors, have yet to be addressed," say Peterson and Snow in a joint statement. Other members of the commission are John H. Biggs, chairman, president and CEO, TIAA-CREF; John Bogle, founder and former chairman of the Vanguard Group; Charles A. Bowsher, former comptroller general of the United States; Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and the American Business Conference; Ralph Larsen, former chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson; Lynn Paine, a professor at Harvard Business School; Warren Rudman, former U.S. senator and now at the law firm of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison; and Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve System's Board of Governors.