We examine the political dynamics which led to the codification of the Principles and Standards for sound compensation practices at financial institutions at international (G 20) level and to their subsequent implementation on both sides of the Atlantic. We show that the regulation of bankers'...

In 2005, the perception that wealthy executives were being rewarded for failure led Congress to ban Chapter 11 firms from paying retention bonuses to senior managers. Under the new law, debtors could still pay bonuses to executives – but only “incentive” bonuses triggered by accomplishing...

This paper, which was first presented as a conference paper at the Annual 2009 Supreme Court of New South Wales Conference in June 2009, considers the impact of the global financial crisis on the regulation of executive pay in a range of common law jurisdictions, including the United States, the...

The conventional view of regulation is that it exists to constrain corporate activity that harms the public. But amid perceptions of government failure, many now call on corporations to tackle social problems themselves. And in this moment of dissatisfaction with government, powerful asset...

This paper assesses how Italian companies have implemented the regulation on related party transactions enacted by Consob in 2010. Companies have been given some degree of freedom in devising their internal codes: they may “opt-up” or “opt-down” from some of the default provisions set...

How do we prevent financial institutions from taking excessive risk when the public fisc serves as their ultimate creditor? This is one of the central questions left over after the recent financial crisis and, for the past five years, there has been no shortage of proposed answers. Two of the...

The current market for proxy advice arises out of an agency problem, but not the one usually assumed. Investment fund managers have relatively few economic incentives to invest effort on corporate governance and so they tend to organize around picking the best stocks and trading those stocks at...

The US approach to regulating the securities markets is underpinned by disclosure, and US policymakers have tended to respond to corporate and systemic crises by strengthening disclosure requirements. For example, in response to the global financial crisis, the US Securities and Exchange...

Disclosure underpins the US approach to regulating securities markets, and US policymakers have tended to respond to corporate and systemic crises by strengthening disclosure requirements. US disclosure-based regulation, however, suffers from two critical failings. First, it lacks coherence in...

At a time of such great turbulence, looking to the future directions of capital markets and their regulation in developed economies is a particularly risky business. We are in the midst of a great sea change.Nevertheless, there are several current, and readily observable, phenomena which are...