The Taiwan Monthly
ESG
Educational Seminars for the 2019 Corporate Governance Evaluation to be Launched on March 4th
The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) started implementing the Corporate Governance Evaluation System five years ago. The evaluation indicator content, scoring scheme, and results has received significant attention from TWSE and TPEx listed companies. To augment their understanding of the content of the 2019 (6th Round) Corporate Governance Evaluation System, encourage them to adopt better corporate governance practices and improve the quality of the shareholder’s meeting, the TWSE and TPEx will hold five educational seminars in Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung and Kaohsiung starting on March 4, 2019.
The TWSE emphasizes that, the 6th Evaluation follows the "New Corporate Governance Roadmap (2018-2020)" and makes adjustments along the themes of stronger qualitative indicators, refined scoring, and a new questionnaire to gather feedback. Four new indicators have been added and four old ones removed. Thirteen indicators are amended, and eight indicators are adjusted into different criteria. The aim is to drive companies to further corporate governance and enhance the differentiation of the overall evaluation. The TWSE goes on to state that regarding strengthening qualitative indicators, "actual implementation" will be the focus of evaluation. In other words, points will not be given until established policies have been implemented or executed to meet certain requirements and publicly disclosed. The approach leads to a more effective qualitative scoring system. The added "scoring by level of practices" indicators include questions such as "basic points to be given for appointment of a corporate governance officer responsible for corporate governance related activities and description of the officer's authority and responsibilities, key targets in the current year, and education and training hours; and additional points awarded if the officer is not concurrently serving another position in the company". The goal is to engage companies by recognizing different scores for different degrees of adoption or implementation of corporate governance practices. All companies, therefore, are urged to develop relevant plans as soon as possible.
In addition to elaborating the amendment of evaluation, these seminars use examples to explain the evaluation guidelines and stress the revision of recent regulations to reinforce the understanding of the board functions and stock affairs.
The TWSE added that since corporate governance evaluation was implemented in 2014, listed companies have greatly increased their corporate governance practices and this has drawn the attention of foreign organizations and investors. As the content of the upcoming educational seminars matches practical needs, over 2,000 people have enrolled for the seminars and space is quickly closing. The TWSE reminds all listed companies to sign up as early as possible on the TWSE website https://act.twse.com.tw/R1080128/.
For further inquiries, please contact Ms. Hsieh at 1124@twse.com.tw .