International Organization of Securities Commissions - Organization Structure - The Committees

The Committees

IOSCO’s ordinary and associate membership is divided into several committees. These include:

• A Presidents’ Committee, composed of the Presidents, Chairmans or senior-most representatives of all securities commissions belonging to IOSCO. It is in effect the organization’s general assembly;

• An Executive Committee, which comprises 19 ordinary members acting under the authority of the Presidents’ Committee, and that acts as the organization’s executive decision-making body;

• A Technical Committee, with 15 ordinary and associate members drawn primarily from the larger, more developed and more internationalized economies, whose role is to develop practical responses to major regulatory issues and study possible international standards and best practices for securities market regulation; and,

• An Emerging Markets Committee, with 80 ordinary and associate members (plus one non-voting member, the U.S. SEC) from Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, whose role is to conduct studies on those markets and suggest ways these markets can be improved.

In addition, IOSCO has four regional committees (Europe, Inter-America, Asia-Pacific and Africa-Middle East) with members drawn from these regions, and an SRO Consultative Committee made up of stock exchanges and financial associations who offer input to the other IOSCO committees on issues of concern to the financial industry.

IOSCO (and its main committees) also have numerous specialized sub-committees (some permanent, some of limited duration) and task forces. IOSCO’s Technical Committee (arguably its most important sub-group, given the prominence of its members and its role as the organization’s “standard-setting” body) has five permanent sub-committees, each focused on a particular area of securities regulation. These sub-committees include:

• Standing Committee 1, which focuses on accounting, auditing and corporate disclosures;
• Standing Committee 2, which focuses on the regulation of stock exchanges (secondary markets);
• Standing Committee 3, which focuses on the regulation of market intermediaries such as broker-dealers, investment banks, etc.;
• Standing Committee 4, which focuses on cross-border securities law enforcement matters;
• Standing Committee 5, which focuses on the regulation of mutual funds and other “collective investment schemes” and
• Standing Committee 6, dealing with credit rating agencies.

IOSCO's main committees (Executive, Technical and Emerging Markets) typically meet three times per year, in different countries depending on which member has agreed to act as host. IOSCO also has an annual meeting which, in addition to side meetings of the Executive, Technical and Emerging Markets committees, also involves a meeting of the President's Committee and typically two days of panel discussions open to the public and featuring regulators and business leaders from around the world. The 2006 annual meeting was the first week of June and was held in Hong Kong. The 2007, 2008 and 2009 IOSCO annual conferences were held in Mumbai, India, Paris, France, and Tel Aviv, Israel, respectively. Previous annual conferences have been held in Colombo, Sri Lanka; Amman, Jordan; and Seoul, Korea among others.

In addition, starting in 2004, IOSCO's Technical Committee began hosting an invitation-only conference as a way to spark discussion and dialogue between the top leaders of regulatory, investor, university and business groups. These conferences are held in cities with major stock markets, in part to facilitate attendance by top business executives and investors. Technical Committee conferences typically have a series of panels made up of some of the most prominent names in the securities industry, including the heads of major stock exchanges, current and former SEC chairmen, and the finance ministers of the host country. The first of these conferences was held in New York, while the 2005 conference was held in Frankfurt am Main. The 2006 Technical Committee conference took place in London in November and the 2007 Technical Committee conference took place in Tokyo in November.