La actualidad pone de manifiesto que el gobierno corporativo de las sociedades cotizadas vuelve a ser una de las preferencias regulatorias. Esto vale en el plano internacional y también en relación con la evolución de nuestro ordenamiento. Algunas iniciativas que acreditan lo señalado han sido objeto de entradas recientes y motivarán a buen seguro alguna otra futura. ¿Cuál es la razón de esa actualidad recobrada por el corporate governance? Una vez más, la respuesta la tenemos en la crisis financiera. Cobra cada vez mayor aceptación la idea de que junto a la reforma de la regulación financiera, la reacción ante la crisis que asola los mercados mundiales desde hace años pasa también por nuevas medidas en materia de gestión de las grandes sociedades. Es más, se abre paso la solución que combina el tratamiento de ambas cuestiones.
La reflexión sobre el gobierno corporativo sigue planteando la duda sobre la influencia que juega el factor internacional. Así lo apuntó entre nosotros el Profesor Manuel Olivencia con ocasión de la aprobación del Informe o Código a los que dio nombre (“Managers’ revolution/independents’ counter-revolution”, en AA.VV., Estudios Jurídicos en Homenaje al Profesor Aurelio Menéndez, t. II, Madrid, 1996, pp. 2173-2193). Tal factor pasa por la influencia que en las distintas soluciones nacionales tienen las iniciativas internacionales o comparadas, de tal forma que en no pocas oportunidades, las soluciones que se adoptan en un Estado, son criticadas por la simple reproducción de soluciones o recomendaciones que, diseñadas en otros mercados y sistemas normativos, pueden no resultar plenamente aplicables en otros.
Estas observaciones convierten al gobierno corporativo en objeto de un análisis comparado. Una contribución reciente y recomendable es la que ha publicado el Profesor Klaus Hopt bajo el título “Comparative Corporate Governance: The State of the Art and International Regulation”. El enfoque de su trabajo lo justifica en el párrafo final de su introducción:
“All countries have experienced and still experience crises and scandals of corporate governance. However, the problems are not necessarily identical, and adequate answers and reforms are even less uniform. While legislators and regulators often tend simply to imitate responses emerging in other countries in the vague hope that they will also benefit their own system, it is rather the characteristic features of the corporate governance system of each country that help to understand its unique crises and scandals. Reform proposals in particular go astray if one does not understand how the unique combination of economic, legal and social determinants of corporate governance functions in each country. A functional comparative analysis of existing methods will help to clarify the similarities and differences of corporate governance systems and therefore provide more useful general conclusions. Such an approach presupposes solid information on corporate governance features of not just a small handful of somewhat arbitrarily selected countries, but rather of a relatively large number of jurisdictions, and among them systems from different continents, legal families, cultures and traditions. Such broad and wide-ranging information will aid our understanding of the different systems and their path dependencies, assist us in developing best practices and bring about meaningful reform on the basis of comparative experience”.
Transcribo, igualmente, sus conclusiones:
“IV. Conclusions and Theses
1. Corporate governance is the system by which companies are directed and controlled. This system depends heavily on the prevailing shareholder structure of a country, e.g., dispersed as in the United States and Great Britain, or blockholdings, as for example in Germany. The main principal-agent conflict is then either between the shareholders and the board, or between the minority and the controlling shareholder/s. Protection of labor is usually not the task of corporate law. Internal corporate governance works within the corporation; external corporate governance works via takeovers and other market forces. For banks and other sectors there are specific forms of corporate governance.
2. Corporate governance in the shadow of the law, in particular through soft law, has traditionally played a major role at the stock exchanges. Since the Cadbury report in 1992, the corporate governance code movement has swept from the United Kingdom all over the world. The resultant codes usually concentrate on the board and internal corporate governance, including auditing. Enforcement is often by a “comply or disclose/explain” provision that is sometimes bolstered by law.
3. The board is a prime actor in corporate governance. Most countries have a one-tier board structure; in two-tier countries, the management board is separated from the supervisory board. Neither of the two systems is inherently better. Modern laws, therefore, let the corporations choose. Smaller boards are more effective than larger ones. The boards are composed of executive and non-executive, preferably independent, directors. As to the overall task of the board, it is debatable whether shareholder or stakeholder orientation is preferable.
4. Corporate governance reform focuses on improving proper functioning of the board. Having separate committees for auditing, nomination and remuneration is recommended. The role of the chairman of the board or in the two-tier system the supervisory board is key. More recently, this role has been balanced by a lead director. Regular evaluation of the board and its members, preferably assisted by outside experts, is on the advance. Regarding organization, internal control systems and risk management have gained momentum.
5. The rights, duties, and liabilities of the directors are traditionally a domain of corporate law. More recently, there has been a focus on the duty of loyalty and on conflicts of interest. The standard of the duty of care varies. In any case, the business judgment rule opens a safe haven, provided the directors have acted on appropriate information. Most attention is given today to remuneration. The popular battle-cry in this context is “pay without performance.” The real task is not to limit remuneration, but to do away with perverse incentives, in
particular in financial institutions. Liability is an important incentive, especially for crisis situations, but it is not a panacea.
6. Shareholder protection is the major concern of corporate governance. In blockholder systems this protection is needed not so much vis-à-vis the board but vis-a-vis the controlling shareholder. Protection can be achieved either by imposing fiduciary duties on the controlling shareholder or by enacting specific rules for corporate groups as in Germany (Konzernrecht). Individual shareholders or minorities can also be given rights to protect themselves. Apart from financial rights, there are rights of information (disclosure), codecision (voice) and
withdrawal (exit). Yet, a major concern is the old phenomenon of the rational apathy of shareholders. It remains to be seen whether the rise of institutional investors and of shareholder activism will bring more than an ephemeral change.
7. Corporate governance is also concerned with stakeholder interests, and especially with labor. Many European corporate governance systems are characterized by labor codetermination on the board. Germany goes the farthest by legally mandating codetermination at parity in certain corporations. The evaluation of codetermination is highly controversial, and in the end, it is an empirical question. Other means of protecting labor
include information rights and codecision on labor issues without membership in the board, e.g., in the works council.
8. Corporate governance needs the help of gatekeepers such as auditors and other professionals. The most important instrument is mandatory auditing by external auditors. The auditors’ tasks and the accompanying expectations have been constantly increasing, resulting in the so-called expectation gap. Auditors can fulfill their task of confidence-building only if they are independent. The extent of auditors’ liability is highly controversial, and varies considerably.
9. Corporate governance rules are only as good as their enforcement. Corporate governance actors need some form of supervision. This can be done by capital market authorities as they exist today in most countries, by the stock exchanges or by self-regulatory bodies. Each of 76 these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. The right mix must be carefully calculated and is path-dependent.
10. The role of the courts in corporate governance can vary greatly. Some countries try to keep the courts out or to bring them in only as a last resort. In other countries, nearly every contested corporate governance question ends up in court. Procedural law is fundamentally different in various countries, as are the styles of the courts. In the end, a comparative view of corporate governance shows a great deal of convergence, but many path-dependent differences remain”.
Volviendo a la situación española, las recientes informaciones publicadas y otros elementos normativos novedosos parecen apuntar a una nueva fase de nuestro modelo, que probablemente se concrete en una revisión del Código Unificado de Buen Gobierno (CUBG), sea para la ya prevista adaptación a los cambios introducidos de manera deficiente por la Ley de Economía Sostenible (LES), sea para mantener su formulación a las tendencias internacionales que terminen asentándose. Lo cierto es que ante ese escenario se siguen manifestándose algunas dudas sobre la adecuada comprensión de lo que supone el buen gobierno como hecho regulatorio. Las apunto de manera sintética:
1. Ha de partirse de la relación entre la legislación y la autorregulación. El corporate governance nace del reconocimiento de un ámbito de autonomía o libertad estatutaria de toda sociedad a la hora de organizar su mejor gobierno, más allá de lo que exigen las normas.
2. El reproche que cabe hacer a muchas sociedades es que no hicieran uso de esa libertad a la hora de introducir medidas que mejoren su gobierno en defensa del interés social y de los criterios que animan la regulación societaria (en esencia, el control de sus administradores, un funcionamiento más eficiente y transparente de sus órganos de administración y el reforzamiento del papel de los accionistas a través de la junta general).
3. Ante esa evidencia, la defensa de la autorregulación se ve debilitada. Se puede reprochar a la mayoría de sociedades cotizadas una falta de acción. Es lo que he llamado la libertad paralizante. Las sociedades se limitan a plasmar en sus estatutos y reglamentos lo que ordena la ley o lo que recomiendan los “códigos”. No dan un paso más allá. Son contadas las sociedades que hacen uso de la ventaja competitiva y reputacional que ofrece diseñar en la dirección adecuada soluciones propias que mejoren su gobierno.
4. Esa falta de innovación en materia de gobierno corporativo conlleva dos riesgos. El primero, que ante el “mal uso” de la libertad que implica la parálisis antes descrita, el legislador reaccione con soluciones imperativas. Entre nosotros, el ejemplo más reciente lo ofrece la LES. El segundo riesgo es que se amplíe el número de materias en las que se establece un soft law que, resulta obvio, también implica una reducción del ámbito de la libertad societaria. Cumplir o explicar es el principio esencial, que se dirá que no obliga a hacer lo que se recomienda sino sólo a justificar la conducta elegida. Cierto, pero en todo caso, obliga a explicar la razón de no adoptar la recomendación que se diseña como solución general conveniente.
5. Ente la Ley y el CUBG ya eran pocas las cuestiones en las que seguía imperando la libertad de cada sociedad para establecer su propia solución. La actual fase expansiva del gobierno corporativo está llamada a reducir aún más ese ámbito. Ahora, como siempre, la única solución para frenar esa tendencia pasa por la capacidad de determinadas sociedades de hacer un uso efectivo de su sociedad con soluciones propias que evidencien una mejora de su gobierno corporativo y que se diferencien frente a las soluciones generales (de hard o soft law).
Madrid, 6 de mayo de 2011