The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday bolstered regulations on who qualifies to be an independent director of a listed company, with the rules to take effect on Wednesday next week.
Based on amendments to the Regulations Governing Appointment of Independent Directors and Compliance Matters for Public Companies (公開發行公司獨立董事設置及應遵循事項辦法), a listed company’s board members, supervisors and employees cannot be independent directors of another listed company in which it has a stake, Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director Sam Chang (張振山) told a news conference in New Taipei City.
If two listed firms have the same major shareholder, share the same chairperson or general manager, or their chairs or general managers are married, their board members, supervisors and employees cannot not serve as independent directors of the other company, Chang said.
“We think there would be concerns about conflict of interest, as such companies would have close ties, even though they would not necessarily have stakes in each other high enough to define them as affiliated,” he said.
The amendment came as lawmakers accused the government of failing to detect that Oceanic Beverages Co Inc (大西洋飲料) appointed employees of its business partner Cathay Beverages Co (國信食品), which has a 0.49 percent stake in Oceanic Beverages, as independent directors.
People who have audited a company in the two preceding financial years or the current year cannot be appointed as independent directors, the amendments say.
Independent directors should not be paid more than NT$500,000 (US$16,556) for providing financial, accountancy or legal services for the company, Chang said.
Most independent directors in Taiwan are paid less than NT$500,000 per year, so if they earn more than that, they would be deemed to have a pecuniary relationship with the firm and it would not be appropriate for them to be independent directors, he said.
However, if a lawyer has earned more than NT$500,000 working for a listed company’s chairperson, they can become an independent director, he said.
As the Ministry of Education has changed its rules for faculty at public universities working at a second job, they should gain approval from their institutions before becoming an independent director to prevent disputes, Chang said.
Listed companies would not need to immediately dismiss independent directors who do not qualify according to the amended rules, but must appoint new candidates after their terms expire, he said.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS