Ann Veneman (photo, Unicef ©2011, Toutounji)
Update 14 April Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ann Veneman, the former executive director of Unicef, the UN Children’s Fund, was elected Thursday 14 April to the board of Nestlé, one of 14 directors and four women on the board of directors.
Her bid for the board seat has provoked outcries from nutrition campaign groups, Reuters reports Wednesday evening in a lengthy background story filed by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva.
The news agency notes that Unicef is distancing itself from its former boss because of the company’s failure to fully respect the 1981 UN International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes to encourage breastfeeding.
Nestlé’s compliance with code: views differ
Nestlé’s spokesperson Robin Tickle told Reuters that Veneman’s presence on the board would help ensure the company’s full compliance with the code. But Unicef spokesperson Marixie Mercado told the news agency that “I can confirm that UNICEF does not take funding from Nestle. I can also confirm that Nestle violates the code.”
Veneman was Bush appointment as Agriculture Secretary
Veneman, a 61-year-old American lawyer, led Unicef from 2005 to 2010, and for four years before that she was the Secretary for the US Department of Agriculture, appointed by George W Bush. She already serves as a member of the Nestle Creating Shared Value Advisory Board.
When she left Unicef last year she was overseeing a budget of $4 billion and an organization that had seen strong growth since 1965, when its budget was $35 million.
Nestlé has been a target of protesters since the 1970s over its infant formula products and several organizations continue to encourage a boycott of the company’s products. The World Public Health Nutrition Association, WPHNA, noted in March when the announcement about her likely role on Nestlé’s board was made that “This news has shocked some in our profession, and has confirmed the cynical opinion of others.”
Boycott groups send Veneman open letter urging her to say no
Officials from BabyMilkAction and Geneva-based Ibfan, two of the main organizations behind Nestlé boycotts over infant formula, will attend the company’s annual general meeting in Lausanne Thursday. They have published an open letter to Ann Veneman, asking her not to take the board position “or at the very least to make it conditional on Nestlé agreeing to the Four Point Plan which was drawn up by the International Nestlé Boycott Committee and aims to save infant lives and lead ultimately to the end of the 20-country Nestlé boycott.
The four-point plan requires Nestlé to bring its marketing policies and practice into line with the international standards that UNICEF and WHO have championed for decades.”
History of the Nestlé boycott, wikipedia page and Nestlé page
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutans swing into action for Nestle annual meeting (photo: ©2010 Herbi Ditl on flick: http://www.flickr.com/photos/herbivore/)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Nestlé annual general meeting held at the Palais Beaulieu in Lausanne promised to be a relatively dull business session, compared to the UBS one the previous day. But that was before Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutangs crowded the area outside the meeting and two of them were spotted by an AFP reporter abseiling into it and dangling above the discussions.
Greenpeace and the company have been at odds over the Vevey group’s use of palm oil, which the environmental group says is playing a significant role in destroying forests and the habitat for orangutans.
Update 20:15 Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Close to 5,000 shareholders at the UBS annual general meeting Wednesday 14 April approved a number of measures, including a “discharge” for 2008 and 2009, for the bank’s directors and senior executives. But they balked at approving a discharge for 2007, which would free former managers and directors of responsibility, after a lengthy debate that pitted those who want the bank to get on with business against those who worry that a discharge leaves people who lost money to poor management with no means of holding former managers accountable.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - UBS shareholders have sent a strong measure to the bank’s directors and executives: they approved a remuneration package in a non-binding vote, the first time the issue has been put to a vote. But 40 percent of shareholders present said “no” and 5 percent abstained, for an approval rating of only 55 percent. Shareholders traditionally vote far more heavily in favour of items placed on the agenda by the board.
A moment of black humour came when Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the board and former finance minister for Switzerland, was asked by a small shareholder how much time his predecessor, Peter Kurer, had spent teaching him the ropes of his new job, for which he was presumably emminently qualified. Kurer was paid an additional CHF1 million for the handover, according to figures in the annual report. There was laughter when Villiger replied that his wife had asked him the same thing when she read the annual report.
Chairman apologizes for role in helping some US clients evade taxes, says bankers’ pay will eventually come down
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - “Are we to blame ourselves, because we believed the board and accepted their proposals?” asked a Mr Gerber, from a group of shareholders that calls itself the Association of Persons Injured by UBS, at the annual general meeting of the bank, taking place Wednesday 14 April in Basel. “There’s only one thing that is sure, that nothing in the bank was safe . . . and certainly I cannot be blamed for that.” The group has called for a social fund to be created to reimburse shareholders who lost money, a call quickly rejected by Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the board.
Rudolf Meyer, Association for Responsible and Sustainable Economic Management (Actares), followed Meyer with harsh criticism of pay packages and pointed remarks about the lost faith of the Swiss public in the bank. He recommended that shareholders not approve two contentious agenda items: the remuneration package and a move to absolve former directors of responsibility for the bank’s 2007-2009 activities.
The two were part of what Geneva newspaper Le Temps describes as an increasingly vocal group of minority shareholders who are changing the nature of the annual meetings, speaking more critically of the decisions and behaviour of the bank’s directors and senior executives.
Chairman Kaspar Villiger opened the meeting with a prepared speech that acknowledged that “we know how much UBS – an institution of which our country was so proud – has disappointed the Swiss people.”
Updated 22:00 with links on reactions Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UBS shareholders meet today, 15 April, to approve the new governing board of the bank at the annual general meeting (AGM). Before the doors opened the bank had made a pre-announcement that first quarter 2009 losses amount to nearly CHF2 billion and that it will cut 8,700 jobs, for a global workforce that will be reduced to 67,500 in 2010. Nearly one-third of the bank’s employees are in Switzerland and 2,500 of the job cuts will be in Switzerland, with 1,200-1,500 of them through layoffs. UBS says it expects to cut costs by CHF3.5 to 4 billion by the end of 2010, compared to 2008 costs.
