asa says directors should step down, page-2

I agree Travers should step down as Chairman and director of the company. We have a new independent Chairman and appoint another experienced coalminer as a director. An example I have in mind is Murray Bailey, ex-CEO of Yancoal. Also there are many experience previous directors of Gloucester Coal and Endocoal available.
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White Energy board backs chairman

August 6, 2013
Ben Butler

Businessman Travers Duncan arrives to give evidence into the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Sydney, Friday, December 7, 2012. (SMH NEWS) Photo by Mick Tsikas
Travers Duncan arriving to give evidence into the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Photo: Mick Tsikas
The board of coal company White Energy has declared its ''unanimous support'' for chairman Travers Duncan, despite a finding by NSW's corruption watchdog that he should be prosecuted for corrupt conduct over the Eddie Obeid affair.

While Mr Duncan, who rejects the findings, is to continue as chairman, another director named as engaging in corrupt conduct, RAMS founder John Kinghorn, resigned on Friday.

Mr Kinghorn, who also rejects the Independent Commission Against Corruption's findings, said he resigned because the commission had referred evidence about possible breaches of company law to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

''When one is under investigation, which one presumes I will be, I don't believe it's appropriate I be a director of the company,'' he said.

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Mr Kinghorn said he would offer his resignation to the other public companies where he is a director, including LJ Hooker.

He said Mr Duncan was ''a very, very experienced coalminer … and if he left I think half the board would leave and I think all the senior management would leave.

''The company would be much worse off without him. I hope as a shareholder that he does not leave.''

On Wednesday, ICAC commissioner David Ipp, QC, found Mr Duncan's corrupt conduct included ''deliberately misleading'' independent director Graham Cubbin as to the involvement of the Obeid family in a coal tenement in the Bylong Valley, in NSW.

In 2010, Mr Cubbin, who remains on the White Energy board, was head of a committee investigating a takeover of Cascade Coal, which owned the Mount Penny tenement.

Mr Travers will face a shareholder vote at the company's annual meeting in November.

It is believed biggest shareholder M&G Investments, which owns about 18 per cent of White Energy but is not represented on the board, is yet to inform the company of its view on Mr Travers.

Australian Shareholders Association chairman Ian Curry said it was ''quite strange to think that one director who has been named has chosen to resign and another … has chosen not to and has been endorsed by the board''.

He said the ASA was likely to recommend its members vote against Mr Duncan's re-election.

''The corporate governance issues remain,'' he said.

The company's statement on Monday was ''curious'' and ''seems contradictory'' and called on the board to explain its position. ''We would like them to reconcile their view that Mr Duncan should remain as chairman with Mr Kinghorn resigning,'' he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/white-energy-board-backs-chairman-20130805-2ra3i.html