​The Capital Market Authority ("CMA") Board approved the amendments of the Corporate Governance Regulations, after the draft was published on the CMA's website for public consultation. CMA stated that had studied carefully all opinions, observations and recommendations received from investors, specialists and related parties. the CMA published the amended Corporate Governance Regulations on its website, and the amendments shall be affective from its publication date.

The amendments of the Corporate Governance Regulations are; the amendment of the definition of "relatives" in Article 1 of the Corporate Governance Regulations, as well as determining the financial consideration that does not affect the independence of the independent Board member, in addition to changing sub-paragraph (10) of paragraph (c) of Article 20 of the Corporate Governance Regulations from "a guiding paragraph" to a "mandatory paragraph" starting from the term of the listed company's board that will be after 1/1/2019G, in addition to adding a new paragraph to Article 20 specifying the interest that does not affect the independence of the independent board member. Furthermore, amending paragraph (3) of Article 46 of the Corporate Governance Regulations, in a manner clarifying that the board of directors must assess the board member's competition with the company's business or if he/she is in competition with one of the branch activities that it conducts in accordance with the rules approved by the Board. In addition to other amendments related to Article 93 regarding the disclosures of the senior executives.

The Authority also mentioned that when preparing these amendments, best relevant international practices were considered to achieve the stability of the listed companies and develop the governance principles, as well as opinions of the interested, the concerned, the specialists and the related parties, where several comments were received, including the request to grant companies sufficient time to reconcile their situation with the provision contained in sub-paragraph (10) of paragraph (c) of Article 20 of the Corporate Governance Regulations, accordingly sub-paragraph (10) of paragraph (c) of Article 20 of the Corporate Governance Regulations will be mandatory starting from the term of the listed company's board that will be after 1/1/2019G.

The amended Corporate Government Regulations can be viewed via the following link: