New UK Corporate Governance Code And Other Governance Developments

On 16 July 2018, the UK's independent corporate governance, accounting and audit regulator, the Financial Reporting Council (the FRC), published a revised edition of the UK Corporate Governance Code (UKCGC) and supporting informal guidance on how boards might apply it. The new UKCGC will apply to all premium listed companies (whether or not UK incorporated) with accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2019. A number of other important corporate governance reforms have been introduced in the UK at the same time.

The new UKCGC—accessible here—includes some of the most significant revisions that have been made to the UKCGC in recent times and marks the completion of several reforms and updates that have taken place in 2018 in U.K. corporate governance following the Government's proposed reforms in this area announced back in November 2016. In our briefing of 1 September 2017 accessible here, we discussed the package of reforms that the Government had