25 May 2011
CAMAC has published a report on Executive remuneration.

The report responds to a request from the Government, following on from the Productivity Commission report Executive remuneration in Australia (December 2009), for advice on the possibility of reducing the complexity of executive remuneration reports and revising the remuneration setting framework to simplify the incentive components of these arrangements.

In releasing the report, the Convenor of CAMAC, Joanne Rees, said:

CAMAC sees remuneration reporting as a dynamic process, which needs to reflect evolving remuneration practices. Companies should be allowed to develop their response to this changing environment without simultaneously having to come to grips with wide‑ranging new reporting requirements. Evolving remuneration reporting practice, and ideas for simplification of remuneration reports, may provide the basis for a fresh non‑prescriptive legislative approach to remuneration reporting at some future time.

In the meantime, CAMAC has made specific suggestions to improve executive remuneration reporting, including to:

• require companies to give a general description of their remuneration governance framework
• permit companies to withhold commercially sensitive information concerning a performance condition, provided that they disclose that fact and set out a general description of the omitted information
• remove the requirement to use accounting standards methodology in remuneration reports
• require the disclosure of all termination payments, identifying entitlement payments (amounts paid on termination that reflect statutory and other accumulated payments), severance payments (amounts paid specifically for termination, including gratuitous and discretionary payments) and post‑severance arrangements
• require disclosure, for each executive, of crystallized past pay (remuneration granted at some previous time and paid in the current financial year), present pay (remuneration granted and paid in the current financial year) and future pay (remuneration that is deferred to some future period).

CAMAC considers that, in general, the incentive and other components of remuneration policies and arrangements are matters for each company to determine, taking into account various factors, including the experience and skills required of its senior management, the marketplace for executive talent and the expectations of shareholders and other stakeholders of the company.

Copies of the Report

Click here to download the report (PDF file, 565 KB)

Further information

For any further information, please contact John Kluver, Executive Director on (02) 9911 2950 or by email: mailto:john.kluver@camac.gov.au