The tenth anniversary of one of the biggest fraud scandals in corporate history passed last weekend without fanfare. Yet vital lessons are still not being learned.Collapsed US telecoms giant WorldCom filed for bankruptcy on 21 July 2002 after a fraud...

Should regulators be able to bring arbitrary pressure to bear on the boards of private companies?If you listen to Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the House of Commons treasury select committee, then the answer is a resounding no.Tyrie’s committee has been...

Non-executive directors are now more important than ever. Companies and investors are under pressure to improve their stewardship of business amid widespread criticism of corporate excesses.Britain’s ‘shareholder spring’ clearly demonstrated that activism is on the increase, with a correlating rise...

When investing in bank shares is only for the brave, something has gone dreadfully wrong.So said business secretary Vince Cable in a speech to the Association of British Insurers chairman’s dinner just days after the revelation that Barclays - and...

What happens when the corporate world collides with the environment was a hot topic at the United Nations’ Rio+20 summit last week, coming two decades after the Earth Summit in the same Brazilian city.Ahead of the meeting big business was...

In the week when a new report found the total pay and bonuses package among FTSE 100 chief executives climbed by 10 percent last year I was captivated by a book on leadership in the Royal Navy.How can the two...

The future strength and stability of Europe’s banking system is a goal being targeted by all interested parties and political shades, both here in Britain and across the continent. Exactly how we get there is the trillion dollar question and...

Amid all the recent doom and gloom a rare bright spot has emerged: small and mid-cap quoted companies are optimistic about the future.Last week the confirmation that Britain is stuck in the first double-dip recession since the 1970s came as...

Talk to any business these days and the issue of red tape is sure to crop up in conversation sooner rather than later. Companies report being weighed down by the burden of complying with a multitude of laws many of...

The focus on fat cat pay in recent weeks has rightly fallen on to boardrooms. Some of Britain’s biggest companies have found themselves embarrassed after investors big and small refused to support gold-plated remuneration packages. Several chief executives including Sly...