Many countries have a corporate governance code, including:
- South Africa, whose King IV code from the Institute of Directors is my favorite
- United Kingdom: the Financial Reporting Council’s Corporate Governance Code
- Netherlands: Dutch Corporate Governance Code
- The German Corporate Governance Code
- France: Corporate Governance Code for Listed Corporations
- Singapore: Code of Corporate Governance
- The Japan Corporate Governance Code
- Malaysia Code on Corporate Governance
- Italian Corporate Governance Code
But the United States does not have one – yet.
There are pieces in legislation like the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges have listing requirements.
It will take another Act of Congress with enabling rules from the SEC before the US has a code like other nations.
We can only speculate whether that will ever happen.
However, there is a nascent Corporate Governance Framework.
It is a new COSO product, developed in association with the National Association of Corporate Directors. They engaged PwC to develop the framework, which complements their existing internal controls and enterprise risk management frameworks.
The Public Exposure Draft was published this week and they have asked for comments by July 11th.
A good sign is that individuals from the…
