FRC to green light Higgs changes
Sweeping changes to the combined code on corporate governance are today expected to be approved by the Financial Reporting Council at a crunch meeting over the Higgs report.
Link: Higgs special report
The meeting is aimed at addressing concerns arising from the Higgs proposals for non-executive directors and the code following a Department of Trade consultation. It is expected that, following intense criticism, minor changes to those suggested in the Higgs report will be accepted while the council will also approve a significant rewriting of the code.
The reworking of the code is expected to take several months and will be published, in all probability, after the DTI deadline of 1 July. Sir Bryan Nicholson, chairman of the FRC, has said it is ‘important that the job is done as quickly as possible but not so quickly that it is not done right.’
The meeting is also expected to approve the initial plans on how the new FRC, which will incorporate many aspects of what is currently the Accountancy Foundation, will be structured. A chairman’s group has already been created to act as the organisational and co-ordination focal point for the new regulator.