Public companies adhere to corporate governance principles
Publicly listed companies comply with 76% of the principles and recommendations specified in the Corporate Governance Code. This has been evidenced by data in the regulator’s review for 2022. This figure did not change from the previous period despite a relaxation in corporate requirements. However, there was a decrease in the number of companies declaring their full compliance with certain recommendations.
Last year, a large number of regulatory relaxations were put into place for companies, which drastically changed the basic rules of corporate governance, among other things.
General shareholder meetings of many companies were held by correspondence. However, the Code recommends that they be held as physical meetings. Some companies were unable to assess the performance of their boards of directors, as the latter were permitted to cut the number of their members since a lot of directors had to resign under the sanctions pressure. Besides, such companies exercised their right not to disclose information sensitive to the sanctions risk. Concurrently, there was a rise in the portion of publicly listed companies declaring that they had introduced transparent dividend mechanisms.
Unlisted public companies were implementing an increasingly larger number of recommendations from the Code in their corporate governance practices. In 2022, the portion of companies applying less than 50% of the Code’s recommendations was declining progressively from 42% to 38%.