LET BATTLE commence. Michel Demaré (pictured), the AstraZeneca chairman, spoke for many of his FTSE 100 peers when he lamented the unlevel playing field holding back the competitiveness of British companies in the area of executive pay.

Writing in the Financial Times earlier this week, he defended the pharmaceutical giant's decision to increase the potential annual pay package of chief executive Pascal Soriot to £18.7m.

In his firing line? The proxy pay advisers - by implication Glass Lewis and ISS - who both recommended that AstraZeneca shareholders should oppose the revised remuneration policy. It has become a familiar theme: bosses of London-listed companies castigating the proxy advisers for basing their recommendations on comparisons with British or European, rather than global, peers.

"We do not compare ourselves with the top companies of the FTSE, the narrow approach taken by the proxy agencies, and one irrelevant to the decisions of our current and future employees," Mr Demaré declared.

Similar sentiments have been expressed by board members I've spoken to of FTSE 100 companies in sectors such as oil, financial services and mining.

But what to do about it? Demaré's intervention offered few solutions, although he deserves credit for putting his head into the lion's mouth.

For a while last year, there was talk of Treasury ministers seeking ways to bring the proxy advisers into the UK's regulatory orbit. This seemed like a strange solution to the problem: it's not obvious why tougher oversight would lead to alternative voting recommendations.

A more effective step might be for FTSE 100 chairs to make a joint public statement demanding that the proxy agencies take into account their global - and in particular, US-based - peers when assessing the appropriateness of their remuneration policies.

Better still, the owners of public companies, many of whom are griping about the disappearance of quality businesses from the London market, could lend their shoulders to the wheel. Sounds like the perfect job for the revamped Investor Forum.

(c) 2024 City A.M., source Newspaper