Corporate Governance Policies are a component of Entity Level Controls (ELC’s). Corporate governance includes several basic policies that provide assurances to investors, employees and other stakeholders that the business is being managed with sufficient oversight.
Best practices for publicly traded companies (and private companies for that matter), is to provide visibility to the policies on their web-site, provide annual training to their employees, and require that employees acknowledge their awareness and understanding of these policies by way of written sign-off. (Remember that part of C-SOX / Bill 198 and Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 “SOX” is about providing evidence – proving it).
Some of the most common and accepted corporate governance policies include:
• Code of conduct and ethics.
• Communication and disclosure policy.
• Insider Trading.
• Whistle Blowing.
Many companies also provide details of other relevant policies on their web-sites including board of director, senior officer and audit committee responsibilities and risk management policies. All good stuff when it comes to investor confidence.