The Hawkamah Institute for Corporate Governance and the Union of Arab Banks announced and congratulated the winners of the 1st Hawkamah-UAB Bank Corporate Governance Award on November 7, 2007, in Doha, Qatar.

The winners are:

1st Place: Burgan Bank
2nd Place: Dhofar Bank
3rd Place: Bank of Kuwait and the Middle East

Selected as the winner from a list of over 40 submissions from banks within the Middle East & Levant, these banks demonstrated a high level of proficiency, dedication and commitment to good corporate governance in a number of key areas including:

• Structure and functioning of the Board of Directors (or equivalent Supervisory Board)
• Controlled environment and processes
• Transparency and disclosure
• Treatment of minority shareholders

The decision to name these banks as the winning submissions was reached after rigorous assessment by the international jury of experts. Jury members included Charles Freeland, a well-respected international banking consultant, former Deputy Secretary General, Basel Committee on Banking; Michael Stevenson, Middle East Senior Partner (PWC) and Ambassador John Bohn, who is currently Commissioner at California Public Utilities Commission and Chair of Globalnet Venture Partners.

Hawkamah and the Union of Arab Banks thank MasterCard Worldwide for their support for the 1st Hawkamah-UAB Bank Corporate Governance Award.