'And They All Lived Happily Ever After?' – Improving Corporate Law after Enron: A Review Essay

10 Pages Posted: 8 Jul 2009 Last revised: 20 Jul 2009

See all articles by Roman Tomasic

Roman Tomasic

University of South Australia; Durham University - Law School

Date Written: July 7, 2009

Abstract

Corporate law has long engaged in something of a fairy tale world imagining after each era of great corporate scandals that the world has been set right again and that we can all rest assured that the root causes of these scandals have been adequately addressed by law makers or regulators. Unfortunately, this is all far from the truth. Corporate law and corporate law reform often provide a vital legitimation function and serve to give integrity to, and to instil public confidence in, corporations and their management practices. After a short public bloodletting or castigation of miscreants, we are generally all too eager to move on and return to normalcy without necessarily addressing the root cause of the problems that created the latest corporate scandal. The growth of the new economy of the 1990s came to a watershed with the collapse of many of the darlings of this era; companies like Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Global Crossing in the United States, Marconi in the UK and OneTel in Australia come to mind. We are still dealing with the implications of these corporate failures and this is reflected in an important new book, ("After Enron: Improving Corporate Law and Modernising Securities Regulation in Europe and the US", edited by John Armour and Joseph McCahery) that is reviewed in this paper.

Keywords: Corporate Collapse, Enron, Scandals, Law Reform, Corporate Governance

JEL Classification: K22, G35

Suggested Citation

Tomasic, Roman A., 'And They All Lived Happily Ever After?' – Improving Corporate Law after Enron: A Review Essay (July 7, 2009). Australian Journal of Corporate Law, Vol. 20, No. 2 , pp 232-241, 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1431062

Roman A. Tomasic (Contact Author)

University of South Australia ( email )

GPO Box 2471
ADELAIDE
City West, 5001
Australia

Durham University - Law School ( email )

Palatine Centre
Stockton Road
Durham, Durham
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.durham.ac.uk

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