Association of Corporate Trustees hosts regulatory reform dialogue

The Association of Corporate Trustees (ACT) concluded its 2026 Annual Conference, bringing together regulators, legal practitioners, financial institutions, and governance experts to examine the evolving landscape of trusteeship within Nigeria’s rapidly transforming regulatory environment.

With the theme: “A New Legal Order: Corporate Trustees at the Intersection of Regulatory Reforms,” the event provided a timely platform to explore the impact of ongoing reforms on fiduciary responsibilities, investor protection, strengthening capital market integrity through compliance with global standards, cross-border investment monitoring and institutional accountability.

Other key issues highlighted during the expert panel discussion included know your customer (KYC) and due diligence; taxes; infrastructure bond investments; and recent recapitalisation efforts in the financial sector, among others.

The conference comes at a critical juncture as Nigeria’s financial ecosystem continues to adapt to enhanced regulatory frameworks, technological advancement, and global best practices.

Speaking on the timely relevance of the discussion, Omolola Iyinolakan, president of the Association of Corporate Trustees (ACT), noted that corporate trustees have had to adopt multiple interpretations of various political and financial reforms while executing their fiduciary responsibilities.

“The theme of this conference reflects our commitment to positioning trustees as proactive agents of compliance, transparency, and investor confidence. Trustees are actually at the intersection of many reforms, but I dare say that it is not just the corporate trustees. The reforms we have seen over the last one year do not affect the capital market alone, they have had a ripple effect on the entire populace,” Iyinolakan stated.

“Our conference has helped us to explore very robust conversations that addressed our concerns and answered many questions around market recapitalisation, shifting tax frameworks, and evolving compliance rules”, she noted.

The prominent Nigerian legal reforms highlighted during the conversation include the ISA 2025; Data Privacy Act 2023; Tax Act 2025 (capital gain tax) and the regulations on recapitalization for capital market operators.

In his opening remarks, Emomotimi Agama, director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who also represented Raymond Omachi, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance emphasised the urgency of aligning trusteeship practices with the realities of a new regulatory era involving legislative adjustments and evident systemic transformations.

“The current regulatory reforms are bold steps necessary to create a new economy and a new order. Hence, we are living through a rare convergence: the enactment of the Investment and Security Act 2023, the progressive activation of the Nigeria Capital Market institutional infrastructure, the emergence of fiscal and fiduciary instruments, and the growing regulatory imperative to align with global best practices,” Agama explained.

“Corporate Trusteeship, long positioned at the interception of law; financial and fiduciary obligations, now provides a vantage point of extraordinary strategic importance.

“The ISA provides explicit and expanded recognition of the trustee function in the capital market, it articulates greater precision of the obligations in the context of policies of investment schemes while it established clear accountability frameworks”, he further noted.

He stressed further that “Corporate Trustees are not a peripheral player in Nigeria’s economic development story, but a foundational one; the growth of the capital market and through it, the financing of infrastructural projects as well as other metrics of economic development run in part through the quality, strength and integrity of the practice of corporate trustees”

He urged corporate trustees to ensure deliberately investing in systems, talents and processes that are commensurate with the integrated expectations of the regulations.

The discussions throughout the event underscored the central role corporate trustees play in safeguarding the integrity of financial markets and ensuring compliance with emerging legal standards.

The high-level event featured a panel discussion on the topic, “The New Rules of Money: Navigating Recapitalization, Taxation & Regulatory Transformation,” which covered matters such as regulatory convergence, the impact of digitalisation on trusteeship, ESG integration in fiduciary duties, and the management of systemic risks.

Participants also examined case studies illustrating the practical challenges trustees face in implementing the new regulatory directives.

A recurring theme across sessions was the need for continuous capacity building and collaboration between regulators and industry stakeholders, leveraging laws for growth while ensuring a data-driven approach, oversight, and institutionalised governance structures.

The experts stressed the need for readiness for the next trends of regulatory reforms, fiduciary expansions and regulatory compliance amid innovative monetary transactions and data protection strengthened by the necessary institutional structures required.

The conference concluded with a shared resolve among participants to strengthen the role of corporate trustees as guardians of trust and accountability within Nigeria’s financial system while sustained dialogues and coordinated action would enhance the effectiveness of the regulatory reforms and deepen confidence in the capital market.