Corporate governance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Corporate governance - Essay Example ts relation to growth and development of companies and also the scandals that arise where good governance is eliminated and the ways in which these scandals can be eliminated in businesses through proper regulation and legal control. Corporate governance in UK dates back to the growing anxiety in 2002 where corporate scandals had started being experienced in the US. UK set up the Smith committee and the Higgs committee to investigate these failures and the reports were evident of the latent manegiarialism in companies. This raised concerns on integrity of the managerial system of companies. It was argued that high-quality corporate governance was supposed to reduce costs and improve good working conditions of the workers. It was caught up in a scandal in 2008 in which there was an asset scandal which led to loss of value of the bank’s shares. It had a win- win situation where traders who won were rewarded hand those who lost their money to the bank. This was a short term performance that led to the loss of the value. They could have used a much longer term performance. It has been up with a number of controversies e.g. that of environmental pollution particularly in African countries. In 1990 protesters were against the company’s environmental record because of the possible pollution that was caused by the proposed disposal of Brent spar. This was a platform in the North Sea. Shell reversed the decision despite the massive support it received from the United Kingdom government. It maintained that the sinking of the platform would also have done better for the environment than the revised decision. Shell had also another scandal in 2004 of overstatement of oil reserves. This resulted to the loss of confidence of investors and stakeholders for the group. The financial services authority fined them 17million Euros. This also saw the departure of Phillip Warts. In Africa, it has led to environmental issues some of which are very extreme. Many pipes are much