Senate ratifies bicam report on amended Corporation Code

The Senate adopted and ratified Wednesday the bicameral conference committee report on a bill amending the decades-old Corporation Code of the Philippines to strengthen and simplify corporate governance standards for a more business-friendly environment.

The reconciled bill allows a one-person corporation by removing the minimum number of incorporators and the minimum capital requirement.

Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, the principal sponsor and author of the bill in the Senate, said with the one-person corporation, local business owners and investors would no longer resort to the practice of naming their entire household as incorporators simply to comply with the stringent requirement of the law.

He added the new code allows a one-person corporation to avail of loans and grants, noting that the current business environment makes it hard for corporations and individual business owners to avail loans, as indicated in the country scoring only 5 (184th place) on the “getting credit” indicator of the World Bank the Philippines,

Once enacted, all existing and future corporations are deemed to have perpetual lives, he said.

The new code also introduces provisions that seek to permit the electronic filing of reportorial requirements and attendance in meetings via remote communication or in absentia, among others – practices that were not recognized in the old law.

It will also strengthen corporate governance standards and provide protection to minority stockholders by requiring, among others, corporations vested with public interest to have independent directors. — MDM, GMA News