By Mak Yuen Teen
Over the last 20 years, I have written hundreds of commentaries and letters on corporate governance. I have never got down to putting them together into a collection and I have not been exactly organised in keeping a copy of everything I have written.
The article here, which is largely about Malaysian corporate governance, but which also sounded a warning about Singapore corporate governance, was published in the Business Times in July 2009. It may be particularly relevant given the state of our market today. The complacency I warned about may have caught up with us.
In my travels around the region, I have seen markets which have traditionally lagged behind Singapore introduce initiatives that put them ahead of us in certain areas such as investor protection and shareholder participation – for instance, Taiwan having an investor protection centre that sues directors on behalf of investors and electronic online voting of shares for all listed companies. I believe enforcement for breaches in listing rules is better in countries like Hong Kong and Malaysia.
There are some details in the article that are outdated. For example, it said that Malaysia has a limit of 10 directorships in listed companies. That has for some years now been reduced to 5 directorships in listed companies. It also said that Malaysia may be the only country which has imposed a limit on number of directorships. Today, a number of other countries have done so, including People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. In Singapore, we are still leaving it to companies and directors to decide for themselves.
Today in Singapore, training for first-time directors has improved. Nevertheless, one still see companies announcing the appointment of directors with no prior experience in listed companies saying that the company secretary will brief them about their duties as directors, rather than them attending formal training. Even for those who say that they will attend training, it is unclear whether SGX monitors and ensures that it is done. Following the latest review of the corporate governance code, training for first-time directors will be strengthened, but there is still the possibility of exemption from such training.
There is a table referred to in the article that is not in the pdf version here.
In the interest of transparency, I should disclose that, starting from this year, I have been helping conduct some of the mandatory accreditation programmes for first-time directors of listed companies in Malaysia mentioned in the article. I can confirm that all those attending the programme are indeed directors, and not their drivers. Some of these directors have served on boards of listed companies in other countries, such as Australia, HK, Singapore and U.S. but they are still required to attend when they join a listed board in Malaysia for the first time.
