ASEAN Council of Bureaux (COB)
Chairman
Huy Vatharo
Insurance Association of Cambodia
Vice-Chairman
Vasit Lamsam
Road Accident Victims Protection Co., Ltd. β Thailand
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COB is a sub-committee which was established under Article 11 of Protocol 5 (ASEANΒ Scheme of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance) which was signed on 18 April 2001 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to coordinate and supervise the legal, technical, administrative and financial operations of the National Bureaux of the Contracting Parties.
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Referring to Article 12, on its composition the Sub-Committee shall consist of one representative from each National Bureau and a representative of the Transit Transport Coordinating Board. Further to it, its Chairman and Vice-Chairman are elected from among the members for a fixed term and according to the rotation principle. Regarding the activity, the COB itself has a fixed agenda to meet annually in its efforts to support the project.
Further on the Protocol, it is stated under Article 13 that COB serves these following functions:
- Determine and adopt the form and content of the Blue Card
- Establish its annual budget and fix the annual contributions to be paid by each National Bureau
- Coordinate the operations of all the National Bureaux. Prepare an Inter-Bureaux Agreement which shall be signed by all the National Bureaux
- Make recommendations to the relevant authorities, with a view to improving the ASEAN Scheme of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance
- Settle disputes between any two or more National Bureaux relating to the application or interpretation of the provisions of this Protocol
- Present a report annually to the ASEAN Insurance Regulators Meeting
π Official website:
Until the beginning of 2017, the registered National Bureaux in COB are as follow:
COB Working Group Meetings
To accelerate the completion of its assignment, the COB established a sub-initiative which is called the COB-Working Group. So far, the Working Group has conducted 9 meetings in total:
The meeting agenda also includes the involvement of Regulators from countries in ASEAN, as their attendance is compulsory to support the implementation of COB programs.
Further on the operations of COB, it is agreed that to improve the implementation of Protocol 5, the cross-border activities has been broken down into three sub-block regions:
- Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam
- Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand
- Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines