BACKGROUND
Peter Holmes has always been interested in farming, having been brought up in a farm in Queensland. In 1997, after completing his university studies in rural science, Peter decided to convert the family farm to organic status, believing that organic products would become more popular as people become more health conscious. His brother, Nick, an accountant, thought that this was a great idea and they began formulating plans to convert the farm to organic status and upon successful conversion, to run the farm as a family business selling organic milk and yoghurt.
William Donaldson (Donaldson), Chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)3, commented that Grasso's compensation details raised serious doubts about governance standards at the NYSE.
Donaldson sent a letter to the compensation committee head - Carl McCall (McCall) asking for more details about how Grasso's compensation package had been decided. The misgovernance at NYSE came to light in August 2003 when the Council of Institutional Investors (CII)4 published a report which highlighted the shortcomings in NYSE's governance practices
TASK
On September 18, 2003, Richard Grasso (Grasso), Chairman and CEO of NYSE resigned amidst widespread criticism of his pay package and governance practices at NYSE. Earlier in August 2003, NYSE announced that Grasso had been given a lumpsum amount of $140 million from NYSE (covering two decades of deferred compensation, and retirement benefits). It also announced that Grasso's contract had been extended upto 2007 with an annual pay of $1.4 million, and an additional $1million annual bonus
In the summer of 1999, a website, www.napster.com, was launched in the US - and the global music industry was changed forever. Napster was a system which enabled musicians and music fans to locate music available in the MP3, and WMA1 music formats.
The website made it possible for its users to freely share their music files through the Internet with...