Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards
A press conference to launch the 2009 Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards (ˇ§2009 Awardsˇ¨) was held on 14 July 2009 (press release) and received positive coverage in the media. The Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards (ˇ§BCGD Awardsˇ¨) is now entering its tenth year. The competition is highly regarded and is well supported by financial market regulators, the HKSAR Government, professional associations, investor groups, and the business community. It continues to play an important role in establishing benchmarks, encouraging improvements in the standard of corporate governance and raising awareness of the need for transparency and accountability to shareholders and stakeholders, prospective investors, the market generally and, particularly in the case of public sector entities, the wider community. The Awards focus on voluntary disclosures of relevant information in annual reports that clearly exceed the bare legal and regulatory requirements. This year, two categories for non-HSI-constituent companies listed on the main board or Growth Enterprise Market (ˇ§GEMˇ¨) are introduced, one for companies with large market capitalisation and one for mid-to-small market cap companies, to encourage companies of all sizes to give attention to corporate governance and adopt best practices. The H-share category was introduced in 2006 and this proved to be closely contested and a great success overall. With the number of new H-share listings steadily increasing, and the inclusion of some H-share companies in the Hang Seng Index, the Institute expects to see more entries from a range of different types of company in this category and further improvements in their corporate governance standards in the 2009 competition. Categories of awards
Each category has a Diamond, Platinum and Gold Award to be given out. In addition, a Significant Improvement Award (SIA), as appropriate, may be given to a company or organisation that has demonstrated a clear commitment to improving its corporate governance disclosures and practices. The judges may also acknowledge a worthy effort through a special mention or commendation. Please refer to the Awards brochure for further details about the 2009 BCGD Awards. Background First introduced by the Institute in 2000, the BCGD Awards are Hong Kongˇ¦s most prestigious awards for corporate governance. The Awards competition was introduced with the twin objectives of encouraging and promoting good corporate governance disclosures and practices, and acknowledging locally-listed companies and public sector/not-for-profit organisations that exemplify the best corporate governance standards in Hong Kong, as reflected in their annual reports. The SIA was first introduced in 2002 to identify the company or organisation that stood out as having demonstrated a clear commitment and the most substantial progress in relation to improving its corporate governance disclosures and practices. To increase the emphasis on encouraging improvements, in 2003, the SIA was included in all categories existing at that time. A fourth category, for GEM-listed companies, was introduced in the 2004 Awards. (However, as nearly all GEM companies will now fall into the new category for companies with mid-small market capitalisation, GEM companies will not be judged separately this year.) H-share companies represent a significant and increasingly important element on Hong Kong stock market. In 2006, an H-share Companies category was introduced for the first time, with the aim of establishing benchmarks of good practice for this group of companies and identifying H-share companies that could serve as role models. In 2008, the annual reports of newly listed-companies were also examined to see how they fared in terms of corporate governance disclosures. The judging process involves carrying out an assessment of the breadth and depth of information relating to corporate governance structures, practices and disclosures contained in the entrantsˇ¦ most recent annual report. The reviewers and judges look, in particular, for voluntary disclosures that significantly exceed the minimum legal and regulatory requirements. The assessment process for the SIA involves comparing the corporate governance information in the latest annual report with that of the entrantsˇ¦ previous annual reports. A further review of short-listed reports is then conducted both as an additional check and to identify the specific areas of improvement. Website information, elaborating on the corporate governance information in annual reports, and other publicly-known information that bears on an entityˇ¦s corporate governance, may also be taken into account by the judges and reviewers. The Judgesˇ¦ Reports for the previous yearsˇ¦ BCGD Awards (click on the relevant link below) contain the results for that year and commentaries on the annual reports of the winning companies and organisations, as well as other observations and overall comments on the general standard of entries:
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