Corporate Governance Uk

Introduction

The OECD describes corporate governance as: "involving a set of relationships between a company management, its Board, shareholders and other stakeholders... providing the structure through which the objectives are set and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance"

"Corporate governance involves a set of relationships between a company's management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders .also the structure through which objectives of the company are set, and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance are determined."

Corporate governance began in UK in the late 1980's early 1990s scandals such as Polly Peck and Maxwell. Corporate governance is in UK sets out by the Combined Code on Corporate Governance (the „Code‟). It originated from a series of reports and guidance on good practice for effective corporate governance starting with the Cadbury Report in 1992, followed by the Greenbury Report in 1995, and then the Hampel Report in 1998, upon which the first version of the Code was based .

The United Kingdom is generally acknowledged as a world leader in corporate governance reform.

This chart shows a timeline and key documents relating to company corporate governance:

Source:http://www.iia.org.uk/en/Knowledge_Centre/Resource_Library/corporate-governance.cfm

This project gives an overview of corporate governance in United Kingdom. The first part will give us a brief background about UK and corporate governance. In the second chapter we will explain corporation listed on stock exchanges, top-level management structure, shareholders' rights, other stakeholder and communication with shareholders and other stakeholders. Chapter three will be discussed five major corporate governance failures in United Kingdom since 2000.The fourth chapter shows evaluation of the current situation, United kingdom attitude to Corporate governance and the response to the major failures that were discussed in chapter three. The conclusion summarizes the results of the paper and gives recommendation.

1.1 Background

The United Kingdom is made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has an area of 243,514 km2. England has 129,634 km2, Wales has 20,637 km2, Scotland has 77179 km2 and Northern Ireland has 13,438 km2. (British Civilization: An Introduction‬ By John Oakland, Page 27) The capital is London situated on the river Thames in the south- eastern part of England. Its populations are over 61.9 million (UN, 2010). The major language is English and major religion is Christianity. Life expectancy in UK is 78 years (men), 82 years (women)(UN).

Capital city: London

Surface area: 243,000 sq. km

Population 62.2 million

Official language(s): English

Cities: Capitals- London (metropolitan pop. about 8.615 million). Other cities--Birmingham, Glasgow, West Yorkshire, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Belfast.

Terrain: 30% arable, 50% meadow and pasture, 12% waste or urban, 7% forested, 1% inland water

Land use: 25% arable, 46% meadows and pastures, 10% forests and woodland, 19% other.

Climate: Generally mild and temperate; weather is subject to frequent changes but not often to temperature extremes.

Head of state: H. M. Queen Elizabeth II

Head of Government: Prime Minister The Rt.Hon. David Cameron

The UK's principal export destinations: USA, Germany, Netherlands

The UK's principal import destinations: Germany, china, USA

Type of Economy:

High-income economy, OECD member, G8 member.

Second greatest financial market in the world. The country has been hardly hit by the economic crisis and the economy shows a high public deficit.

HDI*:

0.849/1

HDI (World Rank): 26/169

Note: * The HDI, Human Development Index, is an Indicator Which Synthesizes Several Data Such as Life Expectancy, Level of Education, Professional Careers, Access to Culture etc.

Source: (Departments of foreign Affairs and trade-Country economic fact sheet and www.state.gov)

1.2 Economy (2001-2010)

The United Kingdom is the sixth largest national economy in the world measures,