Strengthening the independence criteria: a comparison of the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore

• Main Author: Mohd. Sulaiman, Aiman @ Nariman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sweet & Maxwell 2010
• Subjects: K Law (General)
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/1931/1/2010_ICCLR_Issue_7_Mohd-Sulaiman_Article%5B1%5D.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/1931/; http://www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk/Catalogue/ProductDetails.aspx?recordid=423&productid=6944
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

Since the Asian economic crisis, most Asian countries have carried out reform of their law and regulatory frameworks to address their shortcomings and to prevent a repeat of the economic crisis that some attributed to corporate governance failure. Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong have recently revised their applicable corporate governance codes or principles.This discussion provides a comparative study of the differences and similarities in these Codes in relation to: (1) the role of the independent non-executive directors; (2) the independence criteria; and (3) disclosure and verification of the independence criteria. This can be used to provide benchmarking of the applicable rules to counter perceptions of a weak institutional framework on corporate governance.