Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards

A press conference to launch the 2008 Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards ("2008 Awards") was held on 10 July 2008 (press release) and received positive coverage in the media.

The Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards (“BCGD Awards”) is now entering its ninth year. The competition is highly regarded and is well supported by regulators, the government, 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, a "best first-time annual report award" is introduced for corporate governance reporting by recently-listed companies, to encourage companies new to the Hong Kong capital market to prioritise good governance.

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 2008 competition.

Categories of awards

In addition to the new award for first-time corporate governance reporting by a Main Board or GEM company, referred to above, the 2008 BCGD Awards also invites entries from listed companies and public sector/not-for-profit organisations in the following different categories:

Each category has a Diamond, Platinum and Gold Award to be given out. In addition, a Significant Improvement Award (SIA) 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 2008 BCGD Awards.

Background

First introduced by the Institute in 2000, the BCGD Awards are Hong Kong'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.

In view of the substantial number of companies listed on GEM and their significant aggregate market capitalisation, a fourth category, for GEM-listed companies, was introduced in the 2004 Awards.

As 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.

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 entrants' 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 entrants’ 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 entity's corporate governance, may also be taken into account by the judges and reviewers.

Click here for the results of the 2007 Awards. The Judges' Reports for the previous years' 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: