Corporate Governance Code in Argentina: analysis of the compliance level

Abstract

A Corporate Governance Code is a set of rules, principles, and recommendations for the behavior and operation, considered as the best practices for the good governance of organizations, in order to improve transparency, disclosure, and accountability. This paper analyzes the degree of compliance with the Corporate Governance Code in Argentina, where the Code is mandatory for companies that make a public offering of their securities. The empirical work is carried out in a sample of 20 national capital companies, excluding the financial sector and the companies that cross-list their values. The analysis of the level of compliance of the code presented by each firm is developed from two perspectives: the self-assessment carried out by the company, according to the principle of comply or explain, and the analysis performed by an external evaluator, based on publicly available information. The results show that the level of compliance is higher from the perspective of self-assessment and for larger companies. The principles of greater compliance, regardless of the size of the company, are those related to related parties and the audit function. In companies with greater capitalization, adherence to the principle of business ethics is also high. The principle referred to remunerate in a fairly and responsibly way presents the lowest compliance in all the studied companies.