UK: changes to the Combined Code

The Financial Reporting Council has announced several changes to the UK's Combined Code on Corporate Governance:

• the removal of the restriction on an individual chairing more than one FTSE100 company.
  
• for listed companies outside of the FTSE350, permitting the chairman to sit on the audit committee where he/she was considered independent on appointment.
  

These changes follow a consultation earlier this year.  The revised Code will be published at the end of June and it will apply to accounting periods beginning on or after 29 June 2008.  Click here for further information.  The FRC has also published a regulatory impact assessment and a summary of consultees' responses.

NB: The revised Code will come into force on the same day as new FSA rules implementing European Directive 2006/46/EC which will require a corporate governance statement to be published in the annual reports of companies who have their registered office in the Community and whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market.  For further information, see here.

Postscript (27 June 2008): Further information about the new FSA rules is available here and information about the revised Combined Code is available here.