The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday bolstered regulations on who qualifies to be an independent director of a listed company, with the rules to take effect on Wednesday next week.
Based on amendments to the Regulations Governing Appointment of Independent Directors and Compliance Matters for Public Companies (公開發行公司獨立董事設置及應遵循事項辦法), a listed company’s board members, supervisors and employees cannot be independent directors of another listed company in which it has a stake, Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director Sam Chang (張振山) told a news conference in New Taipei City.
If two listed firms have the same major shareholder, share the same chairperson or general manager, or their chairs or general managers are married, their board members, supervisors and employees cannot not serve as independent directors of the other company, Chang said.
“We think there would be concerns about conflict of interest, as such companies would have close ties, even though they would not necessarily have stakes in each other high enough to define them as affiliated,” he said.
The amendment came as lawmakers accused the government of failing to detect that Oceanic Beverages Co Inc (大西洋飲料) appointed employees of its business partner Cathay Beverages Co (國信食品), which has a 0.49 percent stake in Oceanic Beverages, as independent directors.
People who have audited a company in the two preceding financial years or the current year cannot be appointed as independent directors, the amendments say.
Independent directors should not be paid more than NT$500,000 (US$16,556) for providing financial, accountancy or legal services for the company, Chang said.
Most independent directors in Taiwan are paid less than NT$500,000 per year, so if they earn more than that, they would be deemed to have a pecuniary relationship with the firm and it would not be appropriate for them to be independent directors, he said.
However, if a lawyer has earned more than NT$500,000 working for a listed company’s chairperson, they can become an independent director, he said.
As the Ministry of Education has changed its rules for faculty at public universities working at a second job, they should gain approval from their institutions before becoming an independent director to prevent disputes, Chang said.
Listed companies would not need to immediately dismiss independent directors who do not qualify according to the amended rules, but must appoint new candidates after their terms expire, he said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to