Outside directors of public companies play a central role in overseeing management. Nonetheless, they have rarely incurred personal, out-of-pocket liability for failing to carry out their assigned tasks, either in the litigation-prone United States or other countries. Historically, as threats to...

In 2008, share prices on U.S. stock markets fell further than they had during any one year since the 1930s. Does this mean corporate governance “failed?” This paperarticle argues generally “no,” based on a study of a sample of companies at “ground zero” of the stock market meltdown,...

In Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot deduced that no single culprit was responsible for a murder on the eponymous train. In this article, which is intended to serve as an aide memoire to assess anticipated reforms, we similarly reason that there is no single suspect...

For diffuse ownership to become the norm in large business enterprises investors need to be sufficiently confident to buy shares. Will investors follow through if serious doubts exist concerning the competence of those managing companies? This paper addresses this question, primarily by...

Market forces allegedly are serving to destabilise traditional business structures and cause some form of convergence along quot;Anglo-Americanquot; lines. While this trend has been the subject of much debate, it has not been widely commented on in Australia. Moreover, those analysing corporate...

Share ownership in the United States is widely dispersed instead of being concentrated in the hands of families, banks or other firms. Most of the country's major companies have publicly traded shares and a minority of these have a shareholder that owns enough equity to have any sort of...

Events taking place in Britain deserve the attention of those interested in corporate governance. The topic has generated much public debate in the United Kingdom (UK) over the past few years. Moreover, the work done in Britain has spurred reviews of corporate governance in markets around the...

Outside directors of public companies play a central role in overseeing management. Nonetheless, they have rarely incurred personal, out-of-pocket liability for failing to carry out their assigned tasks, either in the litigation-prone United States or other countries. Historically, as threats to...