The UK Stewardship Code
The UK was the first country to turn soft (non-binding) stewardship expectations into policy through the enactment of the 2010 Stewardship Code. The UK Stewardship Code, revised in 2012 and 2019, sets out key principles of effective shareholder stewardship in the sense of constructive engagement and monitoring. The new 2020 UK Stewardship Code introduces higher standards of stewardship across the investment chain with the aim of creating long-term value for clients and beneficiaries leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society, and extends its focus beyond public equity and on service providers, among other changes. UK-inspired stewardship principles have been exported into other countries in Europe, i.e. Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and as a basis for the recently amended EU Shareholder Rights Directive 2017, but also as far as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Taiwan, and the US, and advocated globally by the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN).
Find out more about the UK Stewardship Code