The Financial Services Council (FSC) has released for member comment a draft superannuation governance standard. The draft standard proposes to broadly implement governance standards for superannuation trustees in accordance with the FSC’s Superannuation Governance Policy as announced by the FSC on 6 March 2012.
The standard is proposed to apply to FSC members who are super fund trustees that operate public offer funds and will commence on 1 July 2013 – with mandatory compliance from 1 July 2014.
The 5 key requirements of the draft standard are:
- majority of independent directors;
- independent chairperson;
- preventing multiple, competing directorships;
- disclosure of an environmental and social governance risk management policy; and
- proxy voting record disclosure.
The previously proposed requirement to disclose remuneration by the FSC in March 2012 has been superseded by the proposed Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Further MySuper and Transparency Measures) Bill 2012.
The FSC also proposes to revise FSC Standard 13 Voting Policy, Voting Record and Disclosure and has released a draft proxy voting standard for comment.
The FSC plans to issue the final standards in December 2012. Consultation on the draft standards closes on 22 October 2012.
Source: FSC media release, 27 August 2012
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