In December 2004 the Belgian Corporate Governance Commission issued a new Belgian Code. The Code Lippens recommends listed entities to inform the shareholders and investors of their corporate governance practices at their 2005 general meeting, although companies only have to report their compliance from 2006 onwards.

The working paper of Christoph Van der Elst, professor at the Financial Law Institute, analyzed the information disclosed in the annual reports, the agendas of 2005 general meetings, and the companies’ Web sites. It focused on the actual disclosure reported on corporate governance, on the operations of the board of directors and its committees, and on the disclosure of remunerations to the board, the non-executive directors, top management and the CEO.

It is interesting to see that most of the companies already comply with the majority of the recommendations of the new Code. However, it remains clearly an open question whether companies will disclose detailed information of management’s remuneration.

The working paper can be downloaded from the Web site of the Financial Law Institute (http://www.law.ugent.be). Once at the site, select “Working Paper Series”, scroll down to find, and double click “WP 2005-03”.