Raphael John-Lall

The CEO of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change, Eva Mitchell, is en­cour­ag­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es and com­pa­nies to adopt the up­dat­ed T&T Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance Code, which she be­lieves will lead to bet­ter busi­ness prac­tices.

From the Stock Ex­change’s per­spec­tive, Mitchell said this new gov­er­nance code, when adopt­ed, will en­hance in­vestor con­fi­dence. She ex­plained that when com­pa­nies ad­here to es­tab­lished codes, in­vestors feel more se­cure about the in­tegri­ty of fi­nan­cial re­port­ing and the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es.

“It en­gen­ders a cul­ture of com­pli­ance with an ex­pressed code of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance and firms main­tain a lev­el of gov­er­nance sup­port of a sta­ble in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment. It en­cour­ages stake­hold­er en­gage­ment with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers and the com­mu­ni­ties should be reg­u­lar in meet­ing the spir­it of the cor­po­rate gov­er­nance code. Pos­i­tive and trans­par­ent en­gage­ment by list­ed com­pa­nies with stake­hold­ers will al­so en­hance its rep­u­ta­tion and vis­i­bil­i­ty. It al­so helps in mit­i­gat­ing risks and build­ing re­silience,” she said.

Mitchell spoke at the launch of T&T’s Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance Code in Oc­to­ber host­ed by the Caribbean Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance In­sti­tute (CC­GI) at the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, West­moor­ings.

She said that the T&T Stock Ex­change con­tin­ues to play a key role in the de­vel­op­ment of a re­vised cor­po­rate gov­er­nance code for T&T in col­lab­o­ra­tion with its part­ners such as the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the Caribbean Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance In­sti­tute.

“This marks the first sig­nif­i­cant up­date to the 2013 cor­po­rate gov­er­nance code and rep­re­sents a long-await­ed step for­ward that aligns our gov­er­nance prac­tices with in­ter­na­tion­al best stan­dards. The de­vel­op­ment of this cor­po­rate gov­er­nance code in­volves ex­ten­sive con­sul­ta­tion and dis­cus­sions. The Stock Ex­change took on a cen­tral role in shap­ing the new cor­po­rate gov­er­nance role be­cause we be­lieve that this code is es­sen­tial in en­hanc­ing our vi­tal role in the de­vel­op­ment of our cap­i­tal mar­kets. Stock ex­changes pro­mote trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and good eth­i­cal con­duct through fair pub­lic trad­ing of se­cu­ri­ties and ef­fec­tive price dis­cov­ery. When codes like this are adopt­ed and im­ple­ment­ed by our mar­ket par­tic­i­pants, they sig­nif­i­cant­ly bol­ster the func­tion­ing of a world class stock ex­change.

She added that af­ter this launch the key ob­jec­tive would be the adop­tion of the code by mar­ket par­tic­i­pants.

“The Stock Ex­change has been en­gag­ing po­ten­tial mar­ket par­tic­i­pants par­tic­u­lar­ly in the list­ing of our small and medi­um en­ter­prise mar­ket. So po­ten­tial par­tic­i­pants may find that the im­ple­men­ta­tion of this code will pro­pel them clos­er to list­ing on the Stock Ex­change and reap­ing the ben­e­fits of pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­nies.”

Vol­un­tary code

Chair­man of the CC­GI, Nigel Ro­mano, who al­so spoke at the launch of the up­dat­ed gov­er­nance code, said the 2024 it­er­a­tion builds up­on the foun­da­tion laid by the orig­i­nal gov­er­nance code, which was first pub­lished in 2013.

“I want to em­pha­sise that cor­po­rate gov­er­nance codes are vol­un­tary frame­works. They are not legal­ly bind­ing, but they pro­vide in­valu­able guid­ance to or­gan­i­sa­tions as they de­vel­op prac­tices to bet­ter achieve their pur­pose con­sis­tent with their val­ues as they strive to cre­ate val­ue for their stake­hold­ers while cap­tur­ing enough of that val­ue to sus­tain their op­er­a­tions and grow. It is our ex­pec­ta­tion that boards across T&T will take the time to con­sid­er the prin­ci­ples in the code and use them to de­vel­op and im­ple­ment their gov­er­nance strate­gies.”

He al­so said that an es­sen­tial as­pect of the Code is the “ap­ply or ex­plain” prin­ci­ple, which ac­knowl­edges the flex­i­bil­i­ty af­ford­ed to com­pa­nies that choose to adopt the code.

“While ad­her­ence to the Code is not manda­to­ry, we en­cour­age trans­paren­cy; if a com­pa­ny finds it nec­es­sary to de­vi­ate from any of the guide­lines, we ask that they pro­vide clear and thought­ful ex­pla­na­tions for their de­ci­sions. This ap­proach al­lows each or­ga­ni­za­tion to op­er­ate in a man­ner that best suits its unique cir­cum­stances while still up­hold­ing the spir­it of good gov­er­nance.

“Al­though it is con­sid­ered best prac­tice to re­vise gov­er­nance codes every three years, this up­date has been a long time com­ing. I am grate­ful that we have com­plet­ed the first re­vi­sion as a re­sult of the tire­less ef­forts and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment of our part­ners and stake­hold­ers.”

New Code

Chair­man of the CC­GI’s Work­ing Com­mit­tee, Ron­nie Bisses­sar who is al­so one of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s found­ing mem­bers, who gave the fea­ture ad­dress said there are im­por­tant dif­fer­ences be­tween the orig­i­nal 2013 Code and the present ver­sion.

He ex­plained that the 2024 T&T Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance Code, un­like the 2013 ver­sion, ap­plies to all forms of busi­ness en­ter­prise and this means the new Code ap­plies equal­ly to pri­vate and pub­lic com­pa­nies, SME’s, state agen­cies, not-for-prof­its, NGOs, char­i­ties, fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness­es, mem­ber­ship or­gan­i­sa­tions and sport­ing and recre­ation­al clubs.