Commonwealth Bank AGM (2003)

Details
Company: Commonwealth Bank Limited
Type: Annual General Meeting
Date: 31 October 2002
Chairman: John Ralph (independent)
CEO: David Murray

Pre-AGM
If you go to the Commonwealth Bank website you can still see a webcast of the AGM. Go up to 1 hour 50 minutes and 48 seconds then you can see my stellar performance!

Questions and Voting
Me:I noticed that there was no way of lodging proxies online. Will the bank be introducing one?

David Murray:Online proxies don’t have full legal support from the advice I have received. Will investigate the option.

Me:The Commonwealth Bank has had Ernst & Young as its auditor for the past 7 years. That to me would indicate that there’s been a compromising of their independence, either actual or apparent. Why has the bank kept the same auditor for the past 7 years and will it introduce a rotation of auditors, say, every 5 years?

John Ralph:Audit partners are required to rotate on a 5-year basis so that they are not prejudicing the independence of the auditor. There are processes in place to test the independence of the auditor and the audit firm in relation to the work they do for the bank.

John Schubert (Audit Committee Chairman):The important thing is to make sure that the same people aren’t involved for unduly long in the audit so that relationships can be formed that would be regarded in certain circumstances or at least perceived as impacting on independence. In relation to the firm, there is no requirement to change the firm. It is something the audit committee looks at in so far as there is an advantage in so doing. There’s always the question of what is in the overall interest bank, whether we are convinced that we can have the best people doing the work, the best firm doing the work for the bank at the time and ensuring that there is the required independence. The audit committee is absolutely convinced that we do have a fully independent audit process.

Voting:As per the board recommendations, nothing controversial here.

Post-AGM
I left half way through because I had a class at uni to go to. There were some people who asked questions about the bank manager who had stolen a large amount of money from a bank branch, some unionists who were upset about branch closures, an explanation of some technical financial definitions and one man who critisised John Ralph for saying the American "bathroom" rather than the Australian "toilet".