Annex: A Summary of the Corporate Governance Requirements of Different Countries

The 1992 Cadbury Report included a code of best practice for organisations, which is built around the principles of accountability, probity and transparency. These principles, along with the concept of equity, became the benchmark for good corporate governance. They were reinforced by the public sector equivalent; the first report on Standards in Public Life published by the 1995 Nolan Committee. The revision of the principles in 2004 took into account the lessons learnt from a number of governance failures. The reforms arising from the Cadbury Report focussed on board room control. Audit committees were to be implemented to scrutinise the accounts, a nominations committees to ensure board member appointment clarity, and there were to be three non-executive directors on the board to ensure a balance of dependence and independence. Following on from Cadbury, further high level committees continued along this vein. Greenbury (1995) focussed on executive remuneration, Turnbull (1999) focussed on internal controls and risk management, and the 2003 revisions to the 1998 Combined Code focused, on the one hand, on the organisation and, on the other, on institutional investors, who should regularly engage with the organisation in a dialogue based on the mutual understanding of objectives.