Yee-Ching Lilian Chan Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

The case looks at the board construction of Research in Motion Limited (RIM) since the probe of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) into the business's stock option granting practices in late 2006. Institutional investors, more particularly Northwest & Ethical Investments LP (NEI), were concerned about RIM's direction and board construction in 2011 not because of non compliance with regulations or accounting errors, but due to the extreme fall of the company's share price (see TN-Exhibit 1). Truly, 2011 was a challenging year for RIM (see TN-Exhibit 2 for a list of events impacting RIM in 2011) as its launch of its tablet Play Book wasn't as successful as compared to Apple's iPad 2. There was increasing competition from other smartphones and Apple's iPhone 4S using the Android platform. Furthermore, a number of executives left the company in early autumn and summer.

Moreover, the firm saw a halt to its service because of a fault in the core switch of the infrastructure of RIM, which interrupted internet services and email messages for millions of BlackBerry users over five continents in October 2011. Apart from these serious tactical and operational issues, institutional investors especially NEI, challenged the authority of executives on the Board of RIM and asked for a rupture of the Chair and Co-CEO roles. In order to avert a confrontation with shareholders at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on July 12, 2011, RIM made an arrangement with NEI to create a committee of independent directors to examine its board structure, the merits of a lead director versus a chair, and the company essential' for the company's co-CEOs to hold significant' board-level titles.

Publication Date: 01/01/2014

This is just an excerpt. This case is about Accounting