South Africa’s King V Code Ushers in a New Era of Corporate Governance

Key Takeaways

• Launch Date: The IoDSA will release the final King V Corporate Governance Code on October 31, 2025.
• Simplified Principles: The Code reduces 17 principles to 12, maintaining focus on ethical leadership and sustainable value creation.
• Integrated Thinking: Boards are urged to link governance, risk, sustainability, and strategy under one coherent vision.
• Emerging Risk Oversight: AI, cybersecurity, sustainability, and data protection are now central to board governance.
• “Apply and Explain” Regime: Organizations must transparently demonstrate how they implement each principle.

Deep Dive

South Africa is preparing to turn a new page in corporate governance. The Institute of Directors in South Africa (IoDSA) will tomorrow publish the final version of the long-awaited King V Code, marking the latest evolution of a framework that has shaped boardrooms and board thinking across the country, and far beyond, for nearly three decades.

Building on the foundations of King IV, the new Code aims to simplify principles, clarify expectations, and update the governance conversation for a world defined by technology, sustainability, and stakeholder scrutiny.

First introduced in 1994, the King Codes have long been regarded as South Africa’s most influential contribution to global governance. King V continues that tradition, but with sharper focus and modern relevance.

IoDSA has reduced the number of governance principles from 17 to 12, streamlining the framework while reinforcing the Code’s core outcomes: ethical culture, performance, conformance, and legitimacy.

The Code also elevates the idea of integrated thinking, an expectation that boards see their organizations not as islands of profit, but as part of a wider system of economic, social, and environmental interdependence. It’s a reminder that governance is not just about compliance, but about conscience and continuity.

A Stronger Link Between Governance and Risk

For compliance and risk professionals, King V doesn’t merely repackage governance ideals, it updates the entire operating environment. It weaves in new domains such as information governance, artificial intelligence oversight, cybersecurity, sustainability, and data protection, recognizing how technology and regulation now overlap in every boardroom decision.

The Code also formalizes an “apply and explain” disclosure regime, replacing box-ticking with transparency. Organisations will be expected to demonstrate how each principle is applied, or explain why not. The IoDSA has even developed a standardised disclosure template to improve consistency across industries.

While King V remains voluntary, its reach is expanding. Like its predecessor, it applies not only to listed companies but also to state-owned enterprises, NGOs, and private firms, reinforcing that governance maturity is no longer a luxury reserved for the JSE.

Raising the Bar for Compliance Teams

The implications for compliance and assurance functions are clear. With King V’s publication, organizations will need to revisit their governance frameworks and ensure they align with the Code’s expectations. That means reviewing board and committee mandates, refreshing disclosure practices, and expanding internal assurance to cover the new risk domains, particularly AI, climate, and data governance.

For internal auditors, King V presents a renewed challenge to assess not only whether controls exist, but whether they contribute to ethical culture and legitimate corporate citizenship. It means ensuring that governance reporting is as authentic as it is accurate—less about policy statements, more about proof of purpose.

The release of King V comes at a pivotal moment. South African companies are facing heightened pressure to demonstrate integrity and accountability amid global scrutiny of ESG performance, supply chain ethics, and technological disruption.

Where King IV helped organizations build transparency, King V asks them to go further, to embed resilience and purpose into governance. Its message is less about ticking boxes and more about building trust.

For IoDSA and the governance community, this is more than a routine update. It’s a reaffirmation that good governance must evolve with the world it serves. As one governance practitioner put it during consultation, “King IV told us what good governance looks like. King V tells us how to live it.”

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