Corporate Governance and Regulation in an Era of Corruption

Recent episodes of global corporate corruption indicates that current mechanisms of corporate regulation such as corporate governance procedures that focuses on directors duties and existing legislation has been found wanting as it concerns protecting shareholder's interests from acts of corporate malfeasance. The current law appears to inadequately balance shareholder's rights against the power of corporate control held by directors. As a result, it has proven easy for directors and managers to perpetrate all kinds of corporate improprieties. Globally there are encouraging signs that such imbalances and loopholes are being plugged in order to ensure that the interests of the company are not callously pilfered. In the United States for example the Sarbanes Oxley reform of 2001 is noteworthy, and in the Commonwealth Caribbean countries like Jamaica, especially after the financial sector collapse of the 1990's, have reformed its company and insurance laws, to incorporate stringent measures and mechanisms to prevent corporate corruption.