Ownership Responsibilities

Lindsay Tomlinson, Chairman of the National Association Pension Funds, addresses the ICGN and notes that the Institutional Shareholders’ Committee put out a Statement of Principles on Shareholder Engagement. It will now have some enforcement teeth. (Check Against Delivery, 3/25/2010)

Firstly we expect that it will be an FSA requirement that all investment management firms authorised to do business in the UK will be required to make a statement about the way in which they comply with the Code. This could include words to the effect that they take no notice of it, but it would be a public statement which is made through our main regulator. A regulator which has immense power – for example to ban me from the industry for life.

In addition to that, there will be some form of monitoring mechanism which we proposed should be through each individual’s firms front office controls report a SAS70. And we are anticipating that the FRC will, itself, undertake some form of monitoring, probably at the aggregate level, but maybe extended to individual firms.