Guernsey: corporate governance code update

Guernsey's Financial Services Commission has published its annual report: see here (pdf). This provides an update on the Commission's work developing a corporate governance code (at p.13):

One area on which the regulation of financial services businesses in Guernsey will focus more intensively is corporate governance, the proper practice of which is an invaluable adjunct to effective regulation. Increasingly, external assessments of the Bailiwick’s financial services sector will address compliance by its constituents of current notions of proper corporate governance and accountability, but of course these are not always readily adaptable to particular sectoral circumstances, nor are the precepts and practices of the business world necessarily consistent.

A group of practitioners, reflecting an appropriate cross-section of Guernsey’s financial services sectoral interests, is working with the Commission to produce a draft Code of Corporate Governance, applicable to all licensed entities, and available more widely as a best practice model to local industry and commerce. The draft Code has been the subject of extensive consultation, and work will shortly begin on the particular sectoral adaptations and modifications necessary or expedient to make it practically workable, bearing in mind also that it will eventually have to be acceptable externally. A further consultation will be undertaken in Autumn 2010".