Wal-Mart Told To Clean Up Its Act

    Checking in with the Beast of Bentonville...it's shareholder meeting time for the Beast. And a few people are asking the Beast to try to clean up its act. Check out this story from the Wall Street Journal today:

Wal-Mart Urged to Review Controls Institutional Holders
Press For Study of Its Standards On Regulation and Laws
By JAMES COVERT DOW JONES NEWSWIRES June 2, 2005

     A group of institutional shareholders called on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to review its legal and regulatory controls, citing recent lawsuits over the company's employment practices and a scandal over a top executive's alleged expense-account abuses.

     "Recent reports of legal and regulatory non-compliance raise serious concerns about the adequacy of the company's controls," New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said in a May 25 letter to Roland A. Hernandez, who chairs the audit committee on Wal-Mart's board.

    The letter, which also was signed by the heads of the Illinois State Board of Investment and two British investment funds, calls for Wal-Mart's board to form a special committee to conduct a "comprehensive review" of the company's legal and regulatory controls, "as well as its internal system for ensuring compliance with its own policies and standards."

    The shareholders, who collectively own nearly 11.5 million Wal-Mart shares valued at nearly $550 million, are asking that the board publish its findings and recommendations by December.

    "We have received the letter; the audit committee will review it and will respond appropriately," said Marty Heires, a Wal-Mart spokesman.

    News about internal lapses at Wal-Mart have endangered the confidence of shareholders and exposed the company to legal liability, the shareholders said. They cited a federal-court decision that gave class-action status to a sexual-discrimination suit. The suit represents 1.5 million current and former female employees.

    The shareholders also point to Wal-Mart's $11 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice this year over charges that it knowingly hired contractors that furnished illegal immigrants to clean its floors, and a settlement with the U.S. Labor Department for violations of child-labor laws in three states.

    "It used to be that we had to go to a third-world country to find this kind of exploitation," said Ed Smith, chairman of the Illinois State Board of Investment. "Now, I am appalled and embarrassed to find these practices at Wal-Mart, one of our holdings."

    Karina Litvack of F&C Asset Management PLC in Britain added that Wal-Mart may have weakened its internal controls when it fired an employee who spoke out in the expense-accounting abuse case surrounding Wal-Mart's former vice chairman Thomas Coughlin. "Independent directors need to demonstrate to shareholders that Wal-Mart hasn't built an ostrich culture -- where employees are better off sticking their heads in the sand than speaking up," Ms. Litvack said.

   The shareholder group didn't submit a proxy resolution for Wal-Mart's annual meeting to be held tomorrow, because it wanted to give the company time to respond. "If we are not satisfied by the response, I imagine we might take additional steps -- including a shareholder proposal next year," said Kenneth Sylvester, assistant comptroller for pension policy in the New York City Comptroller's Office.

Comments

[r0bert c. maize]

Wal-Mart , Wal-Mart Where art thou a going?

I would say that we have a case of “Excuse me” I seem to remember that the
Berlin wall fell and OOOps there went “GUMPS”.

the state owned super mall / department store communist distribution center “ their version of American super market?

I’m a Korean veteran (marine corps) you know the “peace keeping force”
I remember all that rhetoric about the evils of a godless society and now this great administration is in debt to a Chinese “Communist country
that we pay out more that a Billion dollars a day in interest just to keep this nation operating.

Now we add the trade deficit with a Chinese Communist country that America and this must be in Quotes “ are selling out our commercial base of the middle class along with our Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney “go ----yourself” leadership of greed with a new phrase:
“ that’s OK if you can’t steal it we’ll sell it to you for a “Wal-Mart discount”.

You can make it here for 34 cents an hour so can ship it back and increase the trade deficit so the working poor of American can have the idea that they are a success.

With all this going on? Now they say they are going up scale?

A simple question for “The Corporate” community which you have to put history to work back over 30 years ago to look at the oil business when all the money was invested and the greed was rampant ) .

The oil nations said we are going to nationalize this business and you can have 30% but we own the rest “OOOps” Thus the time AMCO was born.

Who you ask helped make the deals to keep it together
( check out Rumsfeld, Shultz, Cheney deal with Saddam Hessian and mix in a Saudi prince or two. Naturally don’t forget the grand daddy of them all H. L. Hunt family and friends.

The question now is when will the Chinese Communist say “OOOps” and nationalize all these greedy corporations with one word we’ve “gotcha”

(A note/ just in check it out that the tax payers are paying all medical expenses in the state of Minnesota for wal-mart employees Corporate communism?)

Natural this is just the Introdiggn’s of an old armadillo “Barrow A. Dillo” checking out some old glyphs found on the Crawford fiefdom dig in armadillo land.

An observation in the mystical world of commerce of “want”,

[ethic]

With regard to the wrongdoings of the (former) pharmacy manager of Wal-Mart pharmacy in Windsor;

Other pharmacist (young Chinese woman), the only colleague pharmacist and the manager had been friends. Only two phatmacists have been at that store. They had known each other before that female pharmacist started working for Wal-Mart pharmacy gateway Plaza. So the relationship of the manager and the new recruit should have been quite loose. Readers might have associated with the workplace of a grim boss and a weak novice in which staffs cannot say even the right things.

However, the reality might be a spoiled workplace based on a cozy, connivant working environment, that enabled the manager to use workplace phone for long distance calls in front of their customers/patients for the purpose of sameful activities.

[taxpayer]

Taxpayers have fed such a kink.

[ethic]

Does Walmart Canada monitor their employees properly?
David Marentette, a former pharmacy manager at Gateway Plaza, Windsor Ontario made long-dinstance distance calls from the store during the business hours, misused the ID of other pharmacist (former employee of Walmart) for fraudulent activities.
Don't know why that comment in 2010 was deleted.