The swift and varied responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are directly shaping how companies view and manage risk. One of the most significant and lasting corporate governance implications of COVID-19 will be its impacts on boards’ oversight role of issuers’ enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks. ERM is the process of planning and controlling the activities of an organization with a view to protecting and enhancing stakeholder value by managing the uncertainties around the achievement of organizational objectives. As the COVID-19 dust settles, directors are likely to find themselves exposed to greater scrutiny and accountability for ERM from regulators and stakeholders. In this chapter, taking lessons learned from the pandemic crisis, we review boards’ responsibility for overseeing ERM and discuss practical measures that boards can adopt to strengthen and improve their risk management oversight.

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This chapter appears in the 2020 edition of Davies Governance Insights, our comprehensive annual report on the trends and issues most important to Canadian public companies.

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