A highly successful conference in Taipei, Taiwan, in early April, organized by the Law School’s new Wisconsin International Corporate Governance Initiative (WICGI), proved to be an auspicious Asian debut for the fledgling program.

The event brought international investors together with top-level Taiwanese government and business leaders, to share information and suggestions regarding the regulatory, business, corporate governance, and cultural factors affecting access to international capital for Taiwanese companies.

Representing the Law School were Dean Kenneth B. Davis, Jr.; Professor Charles Irish, Director of the East Asian Legal Studies Center at the Law School; and attorney Keith Johnson ’78, WICGI Program Director, who also teaches at the Law School as an adjunct professor and is of counsel with Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.

All three key players in WICGI (rhymes with Nicky) returned from the conference delighted by the enthusiasm of the participants. Johnson commented, “The local business, regulatory, and policy-making participants were very, very serious about and interested in these issues. This was information they wanted.”

Dean Davis observed, “It was truly in the Wisconsin law-in-action tradition: a gathering of global investors, local regulators and business leaders, and corporate governance experts for a candid discussion of how Taiwan’s recent reforms were working in fact, and what additional steps might be realistic and effective in the future.”

WICGI is an innovative and important response to an increasingly globalized economy, Johnson said. It is specifically aimed at addressing the international issues associated with diverging corporate governance practices.

“Especially after the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, the regulatory and business sectors in East Asia realized that they needed to make a number of reforms in their financial and corporate governance structure,” Johnson explains. “The focus of WICGI is to help both emerging and established markets in Asia to develop structures that will help investors feel comfortable investing in them.”

Johnson elaborates, “Investors need to know that their rights will be protected, that there will be independent members of the board watching out for them, effective audits and controls, and a reasonable level of reporting from the companies to help outsiders evaluate their prospects.”

Johnson, who is former Chief Legal Counsel and head of the corporate governance program for the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (the ninth largest public pension fund in the U.S.), was able to bring major international investor representatives to participate in the Taipei conference from the Netherlands, U.S., U.K., Japan, and Hong Kong.

Credit for the idea of WICGI goes to Dean Davis, according to both Johnson and Irish. Davis contributed the “intellectual spark,” Irish says, while Irish himself drew on innumerable relationships he has built up in Asia over the last 20 years to “put the people together.” The Asian Corporate Governance Association assisted in organizing the Taipei conference, and financial sponsorship and legwork were contributed by the Fuhwa Cultural and Educational Foundation and the Taiwan Securities Association.

“We are no longer an isolated economy,” Johnson says. “It is important for Wisconsin to be involved in Asia both in terms of business ties and to help improve the quality and efficiency of the way companies are governed. To the extent that we, through WICGI, can improve corporate governance, it is an advantage to Wisconsin mutual funds and investment organizations that are investing the assets of Wisconsin residents internationally. It can also help Wisconsin companies going to the area when Asian businesses already have a positive familiarity with the state. So this initiative really touches everyone in Wisconsin.”

WICGI is currently planning for a conference in China in the fall, and will go back to Taiwan by invitation for a follow-up conference with Fuhwa Financial Holding Company, as a result of the resounding success of this year’s Taipei event

It is clear that for WICGI’s founders, the satisfaction of facilitating substantive discussions that help both investors and companies are a great reward for the hard work involved in transnational organizing.

“It’s exciting,” Johnson says. “And it’s important.”

For more information about WICGI, see

http://www.law.wisc.edu/ealsc/wicgi/ .

Submitted by on June 19, 2006

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