COVID-19: 10 corporate governance points for UK directors

Our 10 corporate governance points for directors are:

• Maintain robust decision-making processes
• Exercise business judgement
• Continue to promote the success of the company for the long term
• Involve stakeholders and maintain business reputation
• Maintain board effectiveness
• Stay informed/insured
• Plan for succession/absences
• Data is still your best friend
• Take advice
• Prioritise creditors if in zone of insolvency

The essentials of your corporate governance: leadership, effective decision-making, care for the workforce, the community and other stakeholders, board effectiveness, access to relevant, timely and quality information, and more remain the same, but are now supremely important.

Our insight provides practical corporate governance guidance. It is not guidance on crisis management - there are a lot of those around already. Nor does it specifically address the role of the boards of financial services regulated companies or their unregulated holding companies, though the points below are of general application. They are designed to help boards step back and assess their corporate governance, the more so the longer the COVID-19 crisis continues. We have limited this to 10 points – but there are more.

Our insight has been updated to include insurance considerations and the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 measures that amend insolvency and company law to support business to address COVID-19 challenges.

See our coronavirus (COVID-19) feature for more information generally on the possible legal implications of COVID-19.