Full disclosure: The JSE makes life a little tougher for company directors

Life is about to become a little less comfortable for some directors and prescribed officers of JSE-listed companies. In early December an amendment will be introduced that will require upfront disclosure of all transactions involving their shares.From December there will have to be disclosure of the buying and selling of shares and derivative contracts, as well as of any pledging arrangements.This means ordinary shareholders will not be the very last to learn that the CEO had pledged his shares as collateral for a loan.Recall how shocked Netcare shareholders were earlier this year to discover that CEO Richard Friedland had had to sell all his Netcare shares. They had been pledged as security for a loan that had been used to buy Netcare shares.The forced sale, which was due to the sustained decline in the share price in the wake of the meltdown of the group’s UK acquisition, can only have added to the downward pressure on the share.Andre Visser, GM of issuer regulation at the JSE, s…