Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo), the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID) and the Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore (CSIS) have outlined standards for companies that provide the systems to enable the holding of virtual and hybrid general meetings.
In their joint statement, SGX RegCo, SID and CSIS explained that companies have to consider a list of issues when choosing their service providers. Within their standards outlined, issues such as functional capabilities, general system availability levels and the recovery provisions of such systems are included.
The statement adds that the standards, which are now made public, will allow companies and investors to better understand what the digital services that are used at their meetings can do and how robust they are.
In the guide’s forward by SGX Group, SID and CSIS, the standards set out the expectation that service providers who comply with the provisions of the guide, would be able to meet the typical requirements of companies such as “effective two-way engagement between the companies and their shareholders”.
One such engagement is the ability to support the rights of shareholders to attend, take part in and vote in a virtual or hybrid general meeting in a reliable manner.
“As the world moves towards increasing digitalisation, we expect that the legal and regulatory regime surrounding the holding of shareholder meetings will progressively evolve to permit such meetings to be held in virtual and/or hybrid forms. Such meetings may increase shareholder access and engagement. It is our hope that this set of standards will help assure issuers of the adequacy of the systems they use in order to hold such meetings,” says Tan Boon Gin, CEO of SGX RegCo.
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SID’s vice-chair Adrian Chan adds, “A well-conducted shareholder meeting is both the start and the foundation of stakeholder engagement. To this end, companies should view shareholder meetings as valuable opportunities and avenues to better engage with shareholders and understand investor expectations.”
Finally, CSIS’s chairman Raymond Lam called the release of this set of standards “timely” due to the “prevalence of virtual and/or hybrid shareholder meetings”.
“Not only do the standards set out the technological requirements for the service providers, it will also help the users (listed companies and their investors) to better understand the capabilities and functionalities of such systems. Following the launch of this set of standards, management and company secretaries of listed companies will have a clear framework to refer to in the selection of service providers for virtual and/or hybrid shareholder meetings,” he says.
