Assignment

The board of Worldwide Minerals (WM) was meeting for the last monthly meeting before the publication of the year-end results. There were two points of discussion on the agenda. First was the discussion of the year-end results; second was the crucial latest minerals reserves report.

WM is a large listed multinational company that deals with natural minerals that are extracted from the ground, processed and sold to a wide range of industrial and construction companies. In order to maintain a consistent supply of minerals into its principal markets, an essential part of WM's business strategy is the seeking out of new sources and the measurement of known reserves. Investment analysts have often pointed out that WM's value rests principally upon the accuracy of its reserve reports as these are the best indicators of future cash flows and earnings. In order to support this key part of its strategy, WM has a large and well-funded geological survey department which, according to the company website, contains ‘some of the world's best geologists and minerals scientists'. In its investor relations literature, the company claims that: ‘our experts search the earth for mineral reserves and once located, they are carefully measured so that the company can always report on known reserves. This knowledge underpins market confidence and keeps our customers supplied with the inventory they need. You can trust our reserve reports - our reputation depends on it!' At the board meeting, the head of the geological survey department, Ranjana Tyler, reported that there was a problem with the latest report because one of the major reserve figures had recently been found to be wrong. The mineral in question, mallerite, was WM's largest mineral in volume terms and Ranjana explained that the mallerite reserves in a deep mine in a certain part of the world had been significantly overestimated. She explained that, based on the interim minerals report, the stock market analysts were expecting WM to announce known mallerite reserves of 4·8 billion tonnes. The actual figure was closer to 2·4 billion tonnes. It was agreed that this difference was sufficient to affect WM's market value, despite the otherwise good results for the past year. Vanda Monroe, the finance director, said that the share price reflects market confidence in future earnings. She said that an announcement of an incorrect estimation like that for mallerite would cause a reduction in share value. More importantly for WM itself, however, it could undermine confidence in the geological survey department. All agreed that as this was strategically important for the company, it was a top priority to deal with this problem.

Ranjana explained how the situation had arisen. The major mallerite mine was in a country new to WM's operations.

The WM engineer at the mine said it was difficult to deal with some local people because, according to the engineer, ‘they didn't like to give us bad news'. The engineer explained that when the mine was found to be smaller than originally thought, he was not told until it was too late to reduce the price paid for the mine. This was embarrassing and it was agreed that it would affect market confidence in WM if it was made public.

The board discussed the options open to it. The chairman, who was also a qualified accountant, was Tim Blake. He began by expressing serious concern about the overestimation and then invited the board to express views freely. Gary Howells, the operations director, said that because disclosing the error to the market would be so damaging, it might be best to keep it a secret and hope that new reserves can be found in the near future that will make up for the shortfall. He said that it was unlikely that this concealment would be found out as shareholders trusted WM and they had many years of good investor relations to draw on. Vanda Monroe, the finance director, reminded the board that the company was bound to certain standards of truthfulness and transparency by its stock market listing. She pointed out that they were constrained by codes of governance and ethics by the stock market and that colleagues should be aware that WM would be in technical breach of these if the incorrect estimation was concealed from investors. Finally, Martin Chan, the human resources director, said that the error should be disclosed to the investors because he would not want to be deceived if he were an outside investor in the company. He argued that whatever the governance codes said and whatever the cost in terms of reputation and market value, WM should admit its error and cope with whatever consequences arose. The WM board contains three non-executive directors and their views were also invited.

At the preliminary results presentation some time later, one analyst, Christina Gonzales, who had become aware of the mallerite problem, asked about internal audit and control systems, and whether they were adequate in such a reserve-sensitive industry. WM's chairman, Tim Blake, said that he intended to write a letter to all investors and analysts in the light of the mallerite problem which he hoped would address some of the issues that Miss Gonzales had raised.

Required:

a) Define ‘transparency' and evaluate its importance as an underlying principle in corporate governance and in relevant and reliable financial reporting. Your answer should refer to the case as appropriate.

b) Explain Kohlberg's three levels of moral development and identify the levels of moral development demonstrated by the contributions of Gary Howells, Vanda Monroe and Martin Chan.

c) Critically discuss FOUR principal roles of non-executive directors and explain the potential tensions between these roles that WM's non-executive directors may experience in advising on the disclosure of the overestimation of the mallerite reserve.

(d) Draft a letter for Tim Blake to send to WM's investors to include the following:

(i) why you believe robust internal controls to be important; and

(ii) proposals on how internal systems might be improved in the light of the overestimation of mallerite at WM.

Note: four professional marks are available within the marks allocated to requirement (d) for the structure, content, style and layout of the letter.