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In order to improve public trust in listed companies, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and Taipei Exchange (TPEx) released corporate social responsibility report regulation in 2014. Company's capital stock has achieved no less than NT$10 billion and in certain industries must disclose CSR reprt. Furthermore, TWSE and TPEx demand companies in certain industries to obtain CPA’s opinion letter. With non-financial information which CSR report provided, Taiwan Index Plus corporation launched Taiwan ESG Index to guide stock market with clear a view.
Investors and stakeholders have influences on corporations, and a well-function market needs sufficient information to make a reseaonable reaction. Therefore, disclosure have been used to strengthen coproate governance, it is an effective tool for the government to delegate social purpose into private entities.
In the past, corporations were only required to disclose financial information to investors, and leave non-financial information for the corporation to decide whether to disclose or not. However, with globalization and increasing amount of cross-border legal issues led by international trades between global enterprises — environment, economics, society, corporate governance and human rights, etc., the balance between profitability and social issues have become one of the top concerns for modern society. The requirements of corporations’ non-financial information disclosure have been adopted globally, but it is not accepted without challenges. The processes for the governments to adopt standards and legitimacy of the chosen standards remain disputable.
This Article aims to examine the effectiveness of non-financial information disclosure by corporations. Furthermore, this article addresses the challenges Taiwan faced from the perspective of global governance as below. Taiwan Stock Exchange mandates specific corporations to prepare CSR Reports, while it possibly contradicts with the principle of legal reservation, and Taiwan hasn’t created any existing guidance for disclosure requirements, and this may raise the issue of legitimacy of chosen standard.
This Article proceeds as follows. It starts with the definitions of non-financial information disclosure and review its development, Section two introduces the international standards for preparation, auditing and index for the market to evaluate. Section three addresses current non-financial information disclosure measures in Taiwan and discusses the necessity for government intervention in disclosure. Section four introduces rules of disclosure from EU, USA, UK, South Africa and China. Section five examines the legitimacy for government to adopt private preparation standards for non-financial information disclosure rules from the perspective of global governance. Finally, section six discusses the necessity of mandated non-financial information disclosure in Taiwan and further proposes a suitable formality of non-financial information disclosure in Taiwan.
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