Few women appointed to corporate boards
Although the large listed companies have complied with the new legal and regulatory corporate governance provisions on the number of independent members on the boards of directors and the minimum 25% participation of women in them, the substantial change in mentality seems to still be taking time.
This results, among other things, from the fact that the same women participate in many different boards of directors and that the majority of companies simply adapted to the limits prescribed by law. The Capital Markets Commission points at the sham implementation of corporate governance provisions instead of genuine change.
According to a survey by the CMC, which monitors the implementation of the new corporate governance rules, “listed companies are harmonized with the provisions of the law and the culture of corporate governance they impose has been strengthened, in the direction of strengthening the principles of transparency, proportionality and inclusion – factors that contribute to the more effective and efficient functioning of the market and to the strengthening of the protection and confidence of shareholders and investors.”
However, in its report the watchdog states that “individual analysis showed that the above may be more the result of the obligation imposed by the relevant provisions of the law, rather than the adoption by companies (especially by those in the large capitalization category) of the spirit of the law on corporate governance.” This is because “almost 70% of companies have on their boards of directors the minimum number of independent non-executive members required by law, and, in addition, at only 30% of all companies does the participation of women in the boards exceeds the ratio of one third.”
Commission Vice President Anastasia Stamou, whose responsibilities include corporate governance matters, notes to Kathimerini that “the institutional choice for the legislation of the corporate governance of listed companies through a system of mandatory regulations, and not self-regulation, was correct both at the level of principles and at the level of implementation, and that, overall, the implementation of the law is successful,” but “the application of good corporate governance as a tool to achieve a virtuous cycle in the economy seems to require continuous effort.”
