Environmental and social transparency under the ... - ClientEarth

180 | Environmental and social transparency under the Companies Act 2006Notes | 181301KPMG Global Sustainability Services, ‘KPMG International Survey of CorporateResponsibility Reporting 2005’.302Ibid.303Ibid.304Ibid.305Ibid.306Individuals or groups that affect or could be affected by a company’s activities and associatedperformance.307PricewaterhouseCoopers, ‘The Right Combination*: Corporate Responsibility reports:the role of assurance providers and stakeholder panels’, p. 17.308AccountAbility and Utopies, ‘Critical Friends: The Emerging Role of Stakeholder Panelsin Corporate Governance, Reporting and Assurance’ (March 2007), p. 14.309The increasing use of these panels to decide how far company reporting should go addsfurther to the idea that in practice these reports are less and less strictly for company shareholders,and increasingly serving and communicating with a wider audience.310Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu; Ernst & Young; KPMG; PricewaterhouseCoopers.311SustainAbility, ‘Assurance: Issue Brief #15’ (June 2005).Annex 5312s 457 Companies Act 2006. s 14 of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and CommunityEnterprise) Act 2004 confers power on the Secretary of State to make an order appointinga body to monitor and review the accounts and reports of ‘issuers’ on the London StockExchange whose Home State is the UK. Under this Act the FRRP is authorized to monitorand ensure compliance with the LSE listing rules also.313Or, where applicable, Article 4 of the IAS Regulation.314s 459(7) Companies Act 2006. Information subject to legal professional privilege is,broadly, communications between a solicitor and their client that were conducted for thepurpose of receiving legal advice, both oral and in writing (“legal advice privilege”) anddocuments that are created for the dominant purpose of gathering evidence for use in legalproceedings (“litigation privilege”). There are limited exceptions.315FRRP website, ‘About the Panel’ (accessed Nov 2009) .316All information drawn from FRRP, ‘Operating Procedures’ (2008) unless otherwisenoted.317The FRRP website consistently refers only to ‘accounts’, and not ‘reports’. This may be areflection of the fact that directors’ reports are a relatively new subject of its mandate, butperhaps also broadly reflects its emphasis on strictly financial disclosure.318FRRP Press Release, ‘The Financial Reporting Review Panel Announces Priority Sectorsfor 2008/09’ (9 November 2007).319‘Impairment’ or downward revaluation of a fixed asset. Revaluation of fixed assets isan accounting technique sometimes required to accurately describe the true value of thecapital goods a business owns.320‘Liquidity’ in this context is the degree to which an asset or security can be bought or soldin the market without affecting its price.321FRRP website, ‘How the FRRP Works’ (accessed Nov 2009) .322Ibid.323Ibid.324Paul Grant, ‘FRRP opens up – a bit’ AccountancyAge (4 Aug 2008).325Ibid. If, following an enquiry, the FRRP is satisfied by a company’s explanations, the caseis closed and the fact that an enquiry was made remains confidential.326FRRP website, ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ (accessed Nov 2009) .327Ibid.328Judicial review is the power of the courts to review administrative acts of a public executivebody, and where necessary compel that body to refrain from certain acts or take certainsteps to fulfil its executive duties.329Lord Justice Waller (ed.), Civil Procedure Volume 1 (2008), p. 1523.330See, for example, Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985]A.C. 374.331Civil Procedure Volume 1, p.1525.332See CPR 54.2.Annex 6333In the case of public limited companies, the members are the shareholders. As this reviewis focusing on public limited companies, ‘members’ and ‘shareholders’ will be treated assynonymous unless otherwise stated.