SEC’s dialogue with PLCs today

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC) will engage the publicly-listed companies (PLCs) in a dialogue today, between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., at Grand Ballroom, Hilton Colombo.

This dialogue, which was originally intimated to the PLCs on April 3 and scheduled for April 25, 2019, was rescheduled due to the tragic Easter Sunday events. 

In selecting the new date, the SEC was conscious of the many annual general meetings and other events in June/early July and in order to ensure the participation of a wide cross section of PLCs, it has selected this date.

“In order to provide each stakeholder group with adequate opportunity to engage the capital market regulator, we intend to have the dates dedicated to each stakeholder group in the future. 

These dialogues will be scheduled frequently and the idea of having such fora is to enable the Director General and directors to meet and interact with the regulatees and stakeholders regularly whilst yet retaining their independence and objectivity and at the same time providing the regulatee an opportunity to seek clarifications,” SEC Chairman Ranel T. Wijesinha said. 
The rescheduled forum was intimated to PLCs by a letter dated June 29 and is expected to draw representations from all chairpersons of PLCs and chief executive officers (CEOs). 

In the event the chairperson or CEO is unable to attend, participation of two others is recommended from among the deputy chairperson, chairperson of the audit committee, chairperson of the risk management committee and/or the company/board secretary. 

The main focus of the dialogue includes: corporate governance framework – CEO and chairman duality; continuous listing requirement rules – minimum public holding; boardroom governance matters with specific reference to role of the chairman audit committee, chairman risk committee, company secretary, chief legal officer as contributors to regulation and compliance: role of auditors and other service providers and their impact on regulation and compliance; communications with the SEC as well as the Colombo Stock Exchange; Invest Sri Lanka fora and initiatives towards women participation on boards.

The SEC said over 200 persons have already confirmed their participation.