OECD peer review report: supervision and enforcement in corporate governance

The OECD has published a report on the supervision and enforcement of corporate governance arrangements concerning related party transactions, takeover bids and shareholder meetings: see here. The report covers 27 jurisdictions and focuses in particular on the OECD's Corporate Governance Principles. More in-depth information is provided for three countries: Brazil, Turkey and the United States of America.

Stock exchange corporate governance indices

The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, has published a paper reviewing the different approaches used by stock exchanges in building indices including corporate governance: see here (pdf). Indices in the following countries are considered: Brazil, Italy, Peru, South Korea, China, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey.

BCBS update on Basel III implementation

A few days ago the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published a short statement concerning Basel III implementation: see here. In its statement the Committee noted that eleven jurisdictions had published final regulations implementing Basel III with effect from 1 January 2013: Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland. The following seven jurisdictions have published draft regulations and are, according to the BCBS, working on issuing final regulations as quickly as possible: Argentina, Brazil, the European Union, Indonesia, Korea, Russia and the United States. Turkey will be issuing draft regulations in early 2013.

Turkey: CMB Corporate Governance Principles

The codes and principles directory maintained by the European Corporate Governance Institute has been updated to include a copy of the Capital Markets Board of Turkey's Corporate Governance Principles: see here.

The protection of minority shareholders in listed companies

The Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions established a corporate governance task force in 2005. In 2007 the task force published a report titled Board Independence of Listed Companies. A further report - Protection of Minority Shareholders in Listed Issuers - was published last week and summarises information gathered by the task force concerning the rules designed to protect minority shareholders in eighteen jurisdictions.

The report provides a useful starting point for research but its limitations must be noted: the Task Force did not explicitly require respondents to assess or comment on how the rules were implemented or applied in practice. The eighteen jurisdictions included are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Turkey: EU membership and company law reform

The European Commission has provided an update with regard to Turkey's preparations for EU membership. The progress report notes (pp. 44-45) that there has been no substantial progress with regard to company law, little progress concerning accounting and no progress regarding auditing. A major reason for this lack of progress is the failure of Turkey to bring into force its new Commercial Code (which will make major changes to company law and corporate governance). The progress report notes, however, that the Turkish Accounting Standards Board has adopted and published several interpretations and revisions of international accounting standards.