King IV Apply and Explain

Overview

Draft or validate the King IV ‘apply and explain’ governance disclosure (all 16 principles) for South Africa.

Getting Started

Add your source materials to the project workspace, then activate the King IV Apply and Explain skill. The agent will guide you through the process step by step.

Example conversation

You: We need our King IV apply-and-explain disclosure for the integrated report. We’re a mid-sized listed company—can you draft all 16 principles and then validate it?

Agent: I’ll use the skill’s principle list (1–16) and draft a disclosure for each: where we apply the recommended practices I’ll describe how (proportionally); where we don’t I’ll explain why and what we do instead. I’ll keep it concise and evidence-based. After drafting I’ll run validate_apply_and_explain on the document and fix any missing or weak disclosures until the audit passes.

Output excerpt

Apply-and-explain disclosure excerpt

Principle 1 — Lead ethically and effectively
The board leads through a formal charter, annual evaluation, and ongoing ethics oversight. The chair ensures that meetings allow for independent judgment and that directors declare interests. Applied proportionally to our size; we do not have a separate ethics committee but the full board and Social & Ethics Committee oversee ethics.

Principle 2 — Govern the ethics of the organisation
We have an approved code of conduct and ethics framework. The board approves both and receives annual reports on breaches, training, and protected disclosure usage. Key ethical risks (conflicts of interest, anti-bribery, stakeholder treatment) are addressed in policy and in recruitment and performance processes.

Principle 11 — Govern risk
The board governs risk through a dedicated risk committee, risk policy, and quarterly risk reports. Our risk appetite is set annually and key risks are mapped to strategy. We apply the recommended practices; our risk register and assurance arrangements are described in the risk section of this report.

Extension and validation

The skill includes validate_apply_and_explain, which audits a King IV disclosure document. It checks that all 16 principles (1–16) are referenced and that each has a clear “apply” or “explain” narrative (not just a heading). It reports missing principles and warns when a principle’s narrative is very short. Run it after drafting and address any errors before finalising the report.