CFA: Shareowner Rights across the Markets: A Manual for Investors

PDF file of Shareowner Rights across the Markets: A Manual for Investors

On 16 April 09, CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity has launched a manual "Shareowner Rights across the Markets: A Manual for Investors" to help global investors to understand their rights in 22 of the largest markets, namely:

Australia
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Italy
Japan
Malaysia
Mexico
Poland
Russia
South Africa
South Korea
Switzerland
Taiwan
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

This Manual for Investor is indeed useful, especially now that investors can invest globally but face with lack of information and means to seek help when potential frauds/mismanagement happen in companies invested.

For each country, it comes with these sections:
1. Summary of Current Shareowner Rights
2. Current Engagement Practices and Shareowner Rights Developments
3. Legal and Regulatory Framework
4. Key organizations with information relevant to shareowner rights in the country.
Indeed a very good resource for shareholder activism.

Surprised though, couldn’t find Singapore in the lists of 22 largest markets.

In the Introduction, there is also an insightful section which states GovernanceMetrics International (GMI) criteria to determine whether a board member is to be classified as independent board member. We can use this criteria to determine and "clean up" the pseudo-independent board members as a start.

If you find this post useful, you may check out my other posts on shareholder activism.