Burford Capital Counters ISS Recommendations, Advocates for Retaining Key Directors Amidst Controversy

Legal finance behemoth, Burford Capital, is in the thick of a showdown with Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a globally recognized advisory platform. The bone of contention revolves around two Burford directors, Christopher Halmy and Robert Gillespie, as the company dismisses ISS’s advisory for shareholders to vote against their re-election. At the heart of this fierce stand-off is a disagreement on the interpretation of specific aspects of company financial control.

ISS’s reservations focus on the perceived lack of effective internal control over financial reporting since the 2021 fiscal year. The advisory body points to this issue as indicative of audit committee failure in providing substantial supervision over the financial reporting process within the company over the past year. Consequently, ISS states that reinstating Robert Gillespie and Christopher Halmy to the Audit Committee is not warranted.

According to Burford, these two matters bear no relationship to each other and provide no grounds—under ISS’s guidelines—to cease the tenure of two valuable and experienced directors. Offering another perspective, Glass Lewis, a leading provider of governance services, supports both directors’ re-election to the Board of Directors.

In a testament to their expertise and contributions, Halmy and Gillespie have both significantly impacted the success of Burford. Gillespie was instrumental in overseeing Burford’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange and transition to reporting under US generally accepted accounting principles. Collectively, Halmy and Gillespie supervised engagement with the SEC that led to successful modification of Burford’s valuation framework.