Oecd legal Instruments

IV.A.6. Remuneration of members of the board and key executives. 
Information about board and executive remuneration is also of concern to shareholders, including the link 
between remuneration and the company’s long-term performance, sustainability and resilience. Companies 
are generally expected to disclose timely information including material changes on the remuneration policies 
applied to board members and key executives, as well as remuneration levels or amounts on a standardised 
and comparable basis, so that investors can assess the costs and benefits of remuneration plans and the 
contribution of incentive schemes, such as stock option schemes, to company performance. Disclosure on 
an individual basis (including termination and retirement provisions) is increasingly regarded as good practice 
and is now required or recommended in most jurisdictions. Some of these jurisdictions call for remuneration 
of a certain number of the highest paid executives to be disclosed, while in others it is confined to specified 
positions. The existence of directors’ and corporate officers’ liability insurance may also change managerial 
incentives, thus warranting disclosure of liability insurance policies. The use of sustainability indicators in 
remuneration may also warrant disclosure that allows investors to assess whether indicators are linked to 
material sustainability risks and opportunities and incentivise a long-term view. 
OECD/LEGAL/0413
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IV.A.7. Related party transactions. 
To ensure that the company is being run with due regard to the interests of all its investors, it is essential to 
fully disclose all material related party transactions and the terms of such transactions to the market 
individually. In many jurisdictions this is indeed already a legal requirement. In case the jurisdiction does not 
define materiality, companies should be required to also disclose the policy/criteria adopted for determining 
material related party transactions. Related parties should at least include entities that control or are under 
common control with the company, significant shareholders including members of their families and key 
management personnel. While the definition of related parties in internationally accepted accounting 
standards provides a useful reference, the corporate governance framework should ensure that all related 
parties are properly identified and that in cases where specific interests of related parties are present, 
material transactions with consolidated subsidiaries are also disclosed. Complicated group structures may 
increase the opaqueness inherent in related party transactions and the possibility of circumventing disclosure 
requirements. Special consideration should be given to whether the corporate governance framework 
properly identifies all related parties in jurisdictions with complex group structures involving publicly traded 
companies. 
Transactions involving the major shareholders (or their close family, relations, etc.), either directly or 
indirectly, are potentially the most difficult type of related party transactions to monitor with a view to ensuring 
equal treatment of all shareholders. In some jurisdictions, shareholders above a limit as low as five per cent 
of shareholding are obliged to report transactions. Disclosure requirements include the nature of the 
relationship where control exists, and the nature, value and number of transactions with related parties, 
grouped as appropriate. Given the inherent opaqueness of many transactions, the obligation may need to 
be placed on the beneficiary to inform the board about the transaction, which in turn should disclose it to the 
market. This should not absolve the company from maintaining its own monitoring, which is an important 
task for the board. 
To make disclosure more informative, many jurisdictions distinguish related party transactions according to 
their materiality, terms and conditions. Ongoing disclosure of material transactions is required, with a 
possible exception for recurrent transactions on “market terms”, which can be disclosed only in periodic 
reports. To be effective, disclosure thresholds may need to be based mainly on quantitative criteria, but 
avoidance of disclosure through splitting of transactions with the same related party should not be permitted.