Consortium “RID – Expert RA” has raised its rating for TransContainer to 6+ (“Advanced tactics of corporate governance”) on the scale of the National Rating of Corporate Governance.

The consortium’s experts have noted the significant positive changes in the practice of TransContainer’s corporate governance. The Company’s annual meeting of shareholders has elected a Board of Directors whose composition can be regarded as well-balanced from the viewpoint of the feasibility of the shareholders exercising effective control over the activities of the Company’s management, as well as from the perspective of defending the interests of the minority shareholders.

During the 2008-2009 corporate year, TransContainer’s Board of Directors has endorsed the following corporate rules:

• Statute on Dividend Policy
• Code of Business Ethics
• Statute on the Corporate Secretary
• Statute on the In-house Audit Service of the Company.

A competitive tender was held to select the Company’s external auditor who would work according to the International System of Financial Accounting and the Russian Accounting System. The selected auditor is Deloitte & Touche CIS, which is one of the “big four” global auditors. The Company also pursues a policy of rotating the external auditor and interacting with him in the matter of his affording the Company non-audit services. TransContainer has signed a contract of insurance concerning the responsibility of the Board of Directors’ members.

The Expert-RA Rating Agency and the Russian Institute of Directors have jointly worked out a “Procedure for Conducting National Ratings of Corporate Governance.” Basing themselves on this Procedure, they are working to award Russian companies ratings of the quality of their corporate governance (further on referred to as Rating). The Rating reflects the subjective opinion of the Expert-RA Rating Agency and the Russian Institute of Directors on the quality of companies’ corporate governance.

The National Rating of Corporate Governance constitutes a comprehensive assessment of a particular company’s practice of corporate governance with regard to four factors: (1) Shareholders’ rights; (2) the composition and efficiency of the management and control bodies; (3) disclosure of information; (4) activities in the interests of other interested parties and the social responsibilities of companies.

The National Rating of Corporate Governance also amounts to an appraisal of the risks involved in the corporate governance of a particular company. The higher the rating, the lower the risks involved in the corporate governance of the company concerned, says the Consortium “RID – Expert RA”. According to the Consortium, a company with a score to six to eight points in its National Rating of Corporate Governance faces low risks in its corporate governance. Such a company observes the requirements of Russian legislation on corporate governance, for the most part follows the recommendations of Russia’s Code of Corporate Conduct and certain recommendations inferred from the best global practices of corporate governance.