CORPORATE GOVERNANCE ROUNDTABLE

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Written by Merci Suleik, FICD

Friday, 25 September 2009 14:49

September 8-11, 2009 were red letter days for ICD. The centerpiece of these days was the two-day Roundtable on Corporate Governance in Asia held in cooperation with the OECD which sought to review the continuing efforts to improve corporate governance in Asia since the ARCG’s establishment in 1999 and to take a hard look at where Asian corporate governance may be expected to go ten years hence.

The two-day meeting – on September 9 and 10 – included a report on corporate governance reforms in the Philippines articulated by Philippine key regulators, the BSP and SEC, as well as the Philippine Stock Exchange; the launch of the OECD Governance Series “Guide on Fighting Abusive Related Party Transactions in Asia”; a discussion on Corporate Governance and the Financial Crisis and the way ahead; and a look at the role of stock exchanges in promoting corporate governance in Asia – all with a view to defining the directions to be taken towards Corporate Governance in Asia: Ten Years From Now.

The strong support of OECD to this Roundtable was seen with the attendance of its top officials which included Dr. Marcello Bianchi, Chair of the OECD Steering Group on Corporate Governance, Ms. Carolyn Ervin, Director of the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Ms. Fianna Jesover, Senior Policy Analyst of the Corporate Affairs Division of OECD, among others. Other personages who shared their expertise included Mr. Jaseem Ahmed, Director of the Governance, Finance and Trade Division of the ADB, Mr. Atsushi Saito President & CEO of the Tokyo Stock Exchange of Japan, Mr. Charles Grieve, Senior Director of the Se4curities and Futures Commision of Hongkong, Mr. Chaiyoot Chamnanlertkit, of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Mr. Daoichi Tong from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Mr. Madhu Sudan Sahoo of the Securities and Exhange Board of India, Dr. Sidharta Utama of the Institute for Corporate Directorship of Indonesia, Korea University’s Prof. Hasung Jang, Prof. Lu Tong of China, and Ms. Selvarany Rasiah of Bursa Malaysia Bhd.

Of course, the Philippines was ably represented by Dr. Jesus P. Estanislao, ICD Chairman, SEC VP and Head of its Corporate Governance Office Mr. Jonathan Juan Moreno, BSP Governor Amando Tetangco, SEC Chair Fe Barin, PSE President Francis Lim, DOF Undersecretary Jeremias Paul, and Private Sector Representative, Mr. Oscar Lopez of the Lopez Group of Companies. Secretary of Finance Margarito Teves who gave the Welcome Address also hosted the dinner at the end of the ARCG Conference.

Prefacing and capping this two-day Roundtable were activities mounted by the ICD: on September 8, the program covered the networking among IDEA.net members at which they discussed the CG Scorecoard, common training programs, and initiatives from IDEA.net to help move the ARCG forward, a session which featured an exchange of perspectives and experiences on board performance evaluation; and on September 11, the ICD held the first Asian Investors Forum, which it hopes would continue to be an activity of IDEA.net – in fact, an Investors Forum had been introduced by ICD locally in May 2009 after the ICD Annual Meeting. At this last day a summary of an econometric study on some Asian listed firms which showed a positive correlation between the quality of corporate governance and market valuation of their shares was also presented.

The Forum is an initiative to stimulate an open and candid dialogue between publicly listed corporations and regional investors on issues and concerns regarding corporate governance: what CG metrics do investors look for when making investment decisions, and what initiatives PLCs are taking to attract investors. This Forum, which came after the ARCG meeting was formally closed, was attended by local as well as regional investors, and by PLCs which scored high in the latest CG Scorecard undertaken jointly by the ICD, SEC, and PSE. Moreover, the PSE also exposed its initiatives to move corporate governance beyond mere compliance. Finally, the Forum concluded with a panel of PLCs from the region examining and discussing variations in CG practices and policies which affect a country’s ability to facilitate investment. Surely, this initiative should be a continuing activity not just of ICD, but of IDEA.net as a networking body.

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Last Updated on Friday, 25 September 2009 14:52