Our review confirms a continuing improvement in governance disclosure but also throws out a challenge to all directors of Australian public listed companies to embrace the true spirit of the Principles (which form part of the ASX Listing Rules) by providing more disclosure details rather than the adopting boilerplate disclosures, and furthermore to the non-executive directors to champion compliance by challenging any proposed departures as to whether they are truly in the interests of their stakeholders.
Our 2007 review, whilst confirming that Corporate Australia is in good shape, indicates there are still challenges ahead for Australia's larger public listed companies in complying with the Principles.
Looking more closely at the results, in particular, areas which allow for judgement and discretion, as opposed to a straight "yes" or "no" answer, we noted that not many companies voluntarily provide additional disclosure.
See full Report, in pdf format.
Posts
