  We address some issues in higher-derivative gauged supergravity with
Chern-Simons terms, focusing on the five-dimensional case. We discuss the
variational problem with Dirichlet boundary conditions as well as holographic
renormalization in asymptotically locally AdS spacetimes, and derive the
corresponding boundary terms. We then employ Wald's formalism in order to
define conserved charges associated to local symmetries (diffeomorphisms and
U(1) gauge transformations), taking into account the effect of generic gauge
Chern-Simons terms. We prove that the first law of black hole mechanics and the
quantum statistical relation hold in this setup. Chern-Simons terms also lead
us to distinguish between Noether charges and Page (or Komar) charges which
satisfy the Gauss law. We make use of the latter to compute corrections to the
angular momentum and electric charge of the supersymmetric black hole in
AdS$_5$ from its corrected near-horizon geometry. This also allows us to derive
the microcanonical form of the entropy as a function of the conserved charges
relying entirely on the near-horizon geometry. Finally, we comment on
four-derivative gauged supergravity in four dimensions, showing that field
redefinitions permit to simplify the action at linear order in the corrections,
so that the equations of motion are those of the two-derivative theory.
