1/11/00 - ****Dot-com Firms Need Beefier Boards: Corporate Watchdog 01/10/00
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 2000 JAN 10 (Newsbytes) -- By Steven Bonisteel, Newsbytes. A organization focused on corporate
governance and responsibility says the Internet's "dot-com" companies are a little thin at the top, with fewer independent directors on
their boards than at traditional companies.
The Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) says fewer independent directors - bodies from outside a firm's own executive
ranks - leads to boards which can "fall short of traditional good governance practices."
Robert Newbury, deputy director of IRRC's Corporate Governance Service, summed up information on the corporate governance
practices of 39 companies listed in the Inter@ctive Week Internet Index, saying: "Internet companies' boards generally are smaller and
have fewer independent directors than other US corporate boards and depend less on board committees, which is counter to the
principles of good corporate governance put forth by most of today's governance experts."
IRRC found that the average Internet company's board consists of seven directors, while S&P 500 companies used in comparison had
an average of 12 directors. Some companies - including Amazon.com Inc. [NASDAQ:AMZN], Cabletron Systems Inc. [NYSE:CS] and
eBay Inc. [NASDAQ:EBAY] - had only five directors, it said.
Among the companies reviewed, IRRC said, only Qualcomm Inc. [NASDAQ:QCOM], with 13 directors, had a heftier board than the
S&P 500 average.
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