The SEC’s Regulation Fair Disclosure, or Reg FD has been in effect for nearly 12 years now and essentially requires public companies to widely – not selectively – communicate material information. As you will see from this accompanying clip, it seems that the Board at Diamond Foods needs a refresher course.
As if food companies these days don’t have enough to worry about, for Diamond – add an accounting scandal on top please. So, off go the CEO and CFO. Fine, but then to not disclose this material management change – seems an unforced error from a reputational perspective. Results? Lawsuits, lots of them and the reversal of deals like the one they had in the offing with P&G.
Crises befall every organization, but when the Board is making things worse, it’s time they got better advice, were trained on critical public company components like Reg FD or should be booted out.
I suspect these types of missteps happen often. What other examples have you seen? How many company crises are worsened by the acts and decisions of the management committee or the board?