Effective Company Disclosure in the Digital Age

International Banking and Financial Law Series Volume 28

Effective corporate reporting and disclosure are critical in financial markets to promote vigorous competition, optimal performance, and transparency. This book examines whether existing disclosure frameworks in eight countries with the world’s most significant securities exchanges achieve these objectives, and then, drawing on extensive empirical findings, identifies the policies and practices that contribute most to improving the overall quality of listed company reporting and communication.

Contending that public disclosure of listed company information is an essential precondition to the long-term efficient operation of financial markets, the book provides analysis of such issues and topics as the following:

• arguments for and against mandatory disclosure regimes;

• key principles of periodic and continuous disclosure regulation;

• tensions between direct and indirect investment in financial markets;

• assumptions concerning the need to maintain a privileged role for financial intermediaries;

• intermediary, analyst, and research incentives;

• protection of individual investors;

• selective disclosure;

• disclosure of bad news;

• the role of accounting standards;

• public access to company briefings;

• long term performance reporting and analysis; and

• company reporting developments.