The UK’s code-based approach to corporate governance

The UK’s code-based approach to corporate governance was clearly failing before the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Discuss.

 Describe the key elements of the UK’s code-based approach to corporate governance before the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and comment on the validity of the assumptions underpinning its operation.

Answer from?

• The Combined Code (2006). (Note that there was a more recent version of the Combined Code, but in this seminar the aim is to ensure that we grasp the evolution of the “comply or explain” approach prior to the crisis.)

Erturk, Ismail, Julie Froud, Sukhdev Johal and Karel Williams, ‘Corporate Governance and Disappointment’, Review of International Political Economy, Vol.11(4), 677-713, 1466-4526.

• MacNeil and Li, '"Comply or Explain": market discipline and non-compliance with the Combined Code', (2006) Corporate Governance 14:5, 486-496.

• Alan Dignam, “Capturing corporate governance: the end of the UK self-regulating system”, International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, 2007, 4(1), 24-41