Good Governance
SESAMm's Good Governance Report delivers a structured, data-driven assessment of governance risk for any public or private company.
The report is commonly used for:
- SFDR compliance: Accelerate mandatory good governance checks for SFDR Article 8 and 9 funds
- Early warning signals: Identify signs of board dysfunction, unethical practices, or financial mismanagement before committing capital
- Accelerated due diligence: Replace time-consuming manual reviews of disclosures, board composition, NGO reports, and press coverage with a structured, AI-generated assessment in minutes
- Consistent, scalable assessments: Every company is assessed using the same methodology, making results directly comparable across your portfolio
Requesting your report
Requesting a Good Governance Report takes just a minute.
Step 1: Enter your email address.
Step 2: Select the Good Governance Report.
Step 3: Select the Governance Categories you would like to analyze. Only the categories you select will be considered in the screening process. For more information on the categories, visit here.
Step 4: Set the start date of the time frame to be analyzed (optional). By default, only the past year will be taken into account.
Step 5: Upload your list of companies as an Excel file (.xlsx) single sheet with column names on the first row (header). Up to 50 companies can be processed at once.
All set! Your report will be sent to your inbox shortly after submission. Depending on the number of companies requested, delivery may take a few hours.
Methodology
Each selected category is assessed in three stages:
Step 1: Identify the events
Public sources are scanned to surface relevant controversies and issues for each category. Material and substantiated findings are retained, each rated by severity:
| Finding Severity | Definition |
|---|---|
| Low | Minor issues or unproven concerns, such as deficiencies, gaps, or criticism without regulatory action or confirmed material impact. Small fines. |
| Moderate | Confirmed but contained issues, such as a failure, breach, or enforcement action of limited scope or impact, or a significant weakness with material implications. Fines of USD 10 - 100m. |
| High | Severe breaches or failures with major impact, including confirmed violations of law or international standards, regulatory sanctions, bans, or major legal actions, and significant harm to stakeholders. Fines above USD 100m. |
Step 2: Account for remediation
Credible, company-led corrective actions taken in direct response to those events are identified. Where a genuine company initiative exists, it can lower the assessed risk level.
Step 3: Assess and summarize
Events and remediation are reviewed together through a neutral, evidence-based lens to produce each category's risk rating and a concise summary.
Each finding is assigned one of three risk levels:
| Risk Level | Definition |
|---|---|
| Low Risk | No controversies, or only minor, isolated issues with negligible impact. Remediation is credible, effective, and complete. |
| Potential Medium Risk | Policies exist but gaps, limited oversight, or minor controversies are present. Issues are not systemic, though they may point to potential recurring risk, and any remediation is partial, ongoing, or only partly effective. |
| Potential High Risk | Significant deficiencies, systemic failures, or confirmed violations of international standards (OECD, UNGP, ILO). Recurring controversies or an absence of effective remediation, or material, high-impact events such as major fines, labour rights violations, tax avoidance, or shareholder disputes. |
Governance Sections Covered
The full scope spans five pillars broken down into 18 governance categories, each anchored to recognised international frameworks.
| Pillar | Category | Findings | Reference Frameworks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management Structure | Board Oversight & Independence | Failures or controversies related to board functioning, independence, tenure, diversity, or skills. | G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance
OECD Guidelines for MNEs |
| Governance Policies & Systems | Absence, weaknesses, or failures in governance frameworks, codes of conduct, or ESG integration. | OECD Guidelines for MNEs (Ch. II)
UN Guiding Principles |
|
| Compliance with Laws & Regulations | Legal breaches, sanctions, or regulatory investigations. | OECD Guidelines for MNEs
UN Guiding Principles 11-15 |
|
| Anti-Corruption, Bribery & Ethics | Bribery cases, corruption scandals, or ethical misconduct. | OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
UNCAC UN Global Compact P10 OECD Guidelines for MNEs (Ch. VII) |
|
| Internal Controls & Risk Management | Failures in internal controls, weak risk management, or lack of risk oversight. | COSO Framework
G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance |
|
| Accurate & Transparent Financial Reporting | Accounting irregularities, misstated earnings, or disclosure failures. | IFRS/GAAP
G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance |
|
| Audit Quality & Internal Audit | Failures in audit quality, auditor independence issues, or weak internal audit. | International Standards on Auditing (ISA)
G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance |
|
| Employee Relations | Worker Voice & Feedback Mechanisms | Suppression of employee voice, retaliation, or ignored complaints. | UN Guiding Principles 29-31
ILO C135 |
| Occupational Health & Safety | Fatalities, severe accidents, or unsafe working conditions. | ILO C155
ILO C161 |
|
| Labour Rights & Collective Bargaining | Union busting, strikes, or ILO rights violations. | ILO C87
ILO C98 UN Global Compact P3 |
|
| Diversity, Inclusion & Non-Discrimination | Discrimination controversies or lack of diversity progress. | ILO C100
ILO C111 UN Global Compact P6 |
|
| Training & Development | Lack of training opportunities or underinvestment in workforce development. | ILO C142
OECD Guidelines for MNEs (Ch. V) |
|
| Remuneration | Remuneration Compliance | Wage theft, non-payment, or misclassification of employees. | ILO C95
ILO C131 |
| Executive Pay Alignment & Ratio | Excessive executive pay, misaligned incentives, or shareholder revolts on pay. | EU SRD II
G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance |
|
| Tax Compliance | Responsible Tax Behavior | Aggressive tax avoidance, profit shifting, or tax haven abuse. | OECD BEPS Actions
OECD Guidelines for MNEs (Ch. XI) |
| Tax Oversight | Weak governance of tax policies or oversight structures. | GRI 207-1
G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance |
|
| Country-by-Country Reporting & Transparency | Absence of CbCR, transparency failures, or investor criticism. | GRI 207-4
OECD BEPS Action 13 EU Directive 2021/2101 |
|
| Shareholder Rights | Shareholder Rights Protection | Limiting voting rights, blocking proposals, or restricting AGM participation. | G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance
EU SRD II |
Key Regulatory Frameworks
| Framework | Relevance to Good Governance Screening |
|---|---|
| SFDR Article 2(17) | Defines sustainable investments requiring sound management structures, including board-level accountability. |
| G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance | Covers shareholder rights, equitable treatment of shareholders, disclosure and transparency, and board responsibilities. |
| OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (2023) | Covers general policies, disclosure, human rights, employment and industrial relations, combating bribery, and taxation. |
| UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights (UNGPs) | Corporate responsibility to respect human rights, covering human-rights due diligence and access to remedy. |
| ILO Conventions (C87, C95, C98, C100, C111, C131, C135, C142, C155, C161) | Core labour standards: freedom of association, collective bargaining, equal pay, non-discrimination, protection of wages, minimum wage, workers' representatives, training, and occupational health & safety. |
| EU Shareholder Rights Directive II (SRD II) | Enhances shareholder rights in listed companies (say-on-pay, transparency on remuneration policy, AGM). |
| OECD BEPS / GRI 207 | Base Erosion and Profit Shifting: country-by-country reporting, tax transparency standards. |
| EU Directive 2021/2101 (CbCR) | Public country-by-country reporting for large multinationals. |
Report Components
| Column | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Company Name
(Customer Input) |
The company name exactly as you submitted it. |
| Entity Name
(SESAMm) |
The matched entity resolved in SESAMm's reference database: It reflects the entity's current known name and may differ from the submitted company name due to rebranding or corporate name changes, while representing the same underlying entity. |
| Screened Categories | One risk level per category: Low Risk, Potential Medium Risk, or Potential High Risk. |
| Sources | The full list of public sources used across the analysis. |
| Short Summary | A concise, investor-grade overview (2-4 sentences) of the company's main governance risks. |
| Detailed Content | The complete breakdown of every finding, organised category by category. |
Components of a Finding: within Detailed Content, each item follows the same structure:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | Short headline describing the controversy. |
| Date | When it occurred or the period it spans, including ongoing status (e.g. "2025-06-26" or "2025-06-26 to 2025-08-18" or "from 2025-06-26 until present"). |
| Severity | High / Moderate / Low - rated per finding. |
| Summary | What happened, stated factually and based only on validated evidence. |
| Source(s) | Direct links to the supporting sources. |
| Remediation Initiative(s) | Credible, company-led corrective actions, each dated, with source(s) - or "None identified." if no corrective initiative was implemented. |
Report format
The report is delivered in a standard Excel format (.xlsx). For each category it includes the risk level, a short summary, relevant sources, and detailed findings content.