The Challenge of Corporate Law Enforcement: Corporate Law Reform in Australia and Beyond

Abstract:     
Efforts devoted to modernizing Australian corporations law statutes over the last two decades have seen the development of a comprehensive and elegant Corporations Act; but this has not always meant that corporate misconduct has been dealt with more effectively. Despite a considerable body of new learning on regulatory theory, such as the literature on strategic regulation and corporate risk management, the record of enforcement of Australian corporate law has been patchy and often merely reactive. This article reviews some research and scholarly legal debates about responses to corporate law enforcement and argues that it is necessary for regulators and corporations themselves to focus upon improving internal corporate culture and internal regulatory control procedures within companies. With the declining use of the courts in key corporate law fields, and the overall decline in government resources available to deal with all but high profile corporate failures, it is essential that the increasing regulatory and enforcement burdens be shared between government regulators and corporations. This is necessary so that the enforcement of Corporations legislation is also seen as an organisational responsibility of the corporation itself, so that an organic approach to enforcement and risk management emerges within companies.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 18

Keywords: corporate law, enforcement, corporate collapses, law reform, Australia

JEL Classification: K22, K42

Accepted Paper Series