Corporate governance content on an IR website should make approved information easy to identify and maintain. The central task is to connect each document and disclosure to its responsible owner, current version, and applicable publication requirement.
Start with an issuer-specific inventory from the corporate secretary or legal team. The website provider can organize and publish that inventory, but should not determine obligations by copying another company's governance section.
Build the inventory around the issuer
Potential categories include board biographies, committee information, committee charters, governance guidelines, codes of conduct or ethics, and approved shareholder communication procedures. Include other policies only when the company has determined that they belong in the public section.
Exchange rules are not interchangeable. NYSE's Section 303A guidance identifies website availability for specified charters, guidelines, and codes, subject to applicability. Nasdaq Rule 5610 addresses a publicly available code of conduct and related waiver disclosures, with exceptions elsewhere in its rules. [1] [2]
Use the Nasdaq and NYSE considerations guide to frame the requirements discussion. Keep the approved rule mapping separate from the website's editorial layout.
Make document status understandable
Give every document a plain title and a stable location. Use the company's approved convention for effective dates, approval dates, or version numbers. Those dates should mean what their labels say; a file upload date is not necessarily a policy approval date.
For a revised charter, identify who approves the replacement, when it takes effect, and how the earlier version will be retained. Confirm whether existing links should continue to reach the current version or a specific historical one. Document that decision before replacing the file.
Avoid publishing multiple versions without explanation. A reader should not have to compare filenames such as “final” and “final2” to determine which document governs the current page.
Connect people and committees carefully
Use approved biographies and committee assignments. When a director joins, leaves, or changes roles, review the related board page, committee table, biography, and any linked document together.
Make responsibility visible in the content register. The legal or corporate-secretary team confirms the facts; the publisher verifies that the approved change appears throughout the site. The IR content guide provides a broader model for that register.
Do not infer independence, chair status, or a committee appointment from a person's job title. Display only the designation the company has approved for publication.
Treat special disclosures as controlled updates
Waivers, amendments, and other governance disclosures may involve specific content, timing, and retention requirements. Route them through the issuer's approved legal process rather than the ordinary document-replacement queue.
Nasdaq's code-of-conduct provisions include conditions for using a website to disclose certain waivers. [2] The relevant website task is to implement the approved instruction accurately and preserve the required access, not to generalize one disclosure route to every situation.
Keep governance materials distinct from the SEC filings archive while linking related records where helpful. The SEC filings guide explains that separate access function.
Review readability and maintenance
Provide a short description where a document title alone is unclear. Review the accessibility of the downloadable files and any tables on the page. Use an appropriate document format and verify reading order, links, and headings as part of the publishing process.
Set a scheduled governance-page review alongside event-triggered updates. Ask the owner to confirm both document versions and contact routes. Preserve a change record that shows what was approved and what was published.
For the website interface, WCAG 2.2 provides the technical reference for criteria such as meaningful structure and keyboard access. [3] Include document review in the agreed accessibility scope instead of limiting acceptance to the surrounding page.
Questions companies ask
Is there one mandatory governance menu?
No universal menu follows from the sources discussed here. Build the inventory from the issuer's applicable requirements and approved communications.
Should policies be dated?
Use meaningful dates under the company's version policy. Clearly distinguish approval, effectiveness, revision, and website publication where relevant.
Can the website team determine required documents?
The company should supply the legal requirements and approved materials. The website team translates those decisions into usable pages and publication controls.
What should happen after a board change?
Review every affected page and document with the responsible owner, then verify the completed public update.
A VendorGroup scope discussion can use the approved inventory to define templates, document handling, and ongoing responsibilities.
Related VendorGroup resources
- What Should an Investor Relations Website Include?
- SEC Filings and Investor Relations Websites: What Companies Should Know
- Nasdaq and NYSE Considerations for Investor Relations Websites
Primary sources
- NYSE — Section 303A Corporate Governance FAQs (revised July 28, 2021; Sections A and B)
- Nasdaq — Corporate Governance Rule 5600 Series
- W3C — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2
