The corporate form that developed in the early 20th century created enormous pressure for corporate governance mechanisms to curb the power of corporate managers. Berle and Means, legal pluralists, warned about concentrating economic power in the hands of a small but powerful class of...

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that although audit committees as a mechanism of corporate governance have been created only recently in France, they are set up for the same reasons as in the United States. Directors' shortcomings in their duty of care may have favoured the awareness...