Corporate Governance catch up - Ireland: Elderfield, Gender and Captives

Busy in the last week, so catch up exercise required!

Ireland has been awash with interesting developments on the Solvency II and Corporate Governance front, so I have bulleted them below;

Captive Insurer governance – Ireland’s pre-emptive strike for proportionality parameters have been released in the regulator's consultation paper - nicely summarised by Lexology here

Society of Actuaries feedback on "Fit and Proper" consultation - interesting to get the views of the actuarial world on Fit and Proper requirements, particularly due to the relatively vague nature of the function's responsibilities under Solvency II. Also interesting that Matthew Elderfield referred to the impending regime as being very similar to the FSA's prevailing regime (more on this later).

Themed Regulator Inspection - product failings - Good example of how thorough the investigative work is becoming on the enerald isle, as well as how scathingly the findings are portrayed. This will surely filter through under Solvency II into the capitalisation side should similar weaknesses be found in guaranteed products.

Board Diversity and Gender - Institute of Directors research - some very sobering research on board diversity and quality in Ireland, which shows there may be some distance left to run before governance quality improves in reality. How 80% of responsdents can think they have an appropriate mix of skills, yet only half have some kind of skills framework in place is beyond me (although I appreciate measuring and monitoring does not necessarily ensure application).

More intriguing is the 60% of female respondents in favour of an imposed quota to ensure representation of both sexes on boards (against less than 30% of men). Solvency II, in both the Level 2 and 3 papers provides a ticklist of required knowledge in the management body, but doesn't go as far as to demand quotas.

I dare say that direction will arrive via other means...