1970s: Financial misreporting and corporate collapses
in the U.S. led to “independent” outside directors and
AC.
• 1980s: Corporate collapses in the U.K. led to the
“Cadbury Report”.
• 1997-1999: The Asian Financial Crisis led to sweeping
regulatory changes.
• 2002: The Enron fraud led to reform of corporation
and auditor relationships, accountability for financial
reports, greater board oversight, etc.
Often, increased attention on CG is a result of ‘financial’
crisis. For instance, the Asian financial crisis brought the
subject of CG to the ‘surface’ in Asian countries. To quote
Lin (2009),“Recent scandals disturbed the otherwise placid
and complacent corporate landscape in the U.S. These
scandals, in a sense, proved to be serendipitous. They
spawned a new set of initiatives in CG in the U.S., and
triggered a fresh debate in the European Union, as well as,
in the Asian countries.” Long renowned for their opaque
business practices, Asian corporations have undergone
a dramatic transformation on the CG front. Jamie Allen
(2008), for example, states that “most of the countries/
markets in the Asian region had taken the initiative longback
in 1990s by formulating and implementing an official
code of CG,” which is summarized in Table 2.