European shareholder activism has suffered a painfully public humiliation. The lesson for investors is clear: Pick your battles. Paris-based investment fund CIAM wanted to split the chairman and CEO roles at French re-insurer Scor SE, which has been run for 17 years by Denis Kessler. In addition, it tried to prevent the reelection of the company’s lead independent director Augustin ...

President Donald Trump keeps attacking the Federal Reserve, and has recently moved toward appointing loyalists to the Fed’s governing board. This has sparked fears that he might gain some control over the world’s most powerful central bank, getting it to do his bidding rather than what’s best for the economy in the long term. Are those fears justified? Although my ...

A plastic water bottle, a Snickers wrapper and a container of detergent are dropped into a recycling bin. Are they hazardous waste? They could be, according to a Norwegian government proposal, which marks the latest effort by activists and government officials to tackle the growing tide of plastics threatening the ocean. The proposal has good intentions: It aims to mitigate ...