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“I think there is a resistance to
accountability. This is OK when the
company is going well, but if things
don’t do well, the spotlight will be
that much harsher. Trust has moved
away from companies and I am not
sure that companies actually see
now that they have role in getting
that trust back.”
– David Jackson, Company
Secretary, BP
“If we’re not careful, compliance
could be form without substance,
and we all need to be alert to the
risk of window-dressing and gaming
the system, because any time you
establish rules you are going to find
people who will try to make it look
good on the surface when there is
rot within. Good corporate governance
is not something that can be
instituted simply by regulatory fiat.”
– George Dallas, Global Practice
Leader, Corporate Governance,
Standard & Poor’s
“Training non-executive directors in order to make
them “fit for the job” seems to be very ill-conceived
because I cannot actually see a non-executive
director of a large company, for instance GEC
in the old days, mastering the intricacies of every
single part of the business. Why should he
attempt to do something which is patently impossible
He should be what the law calls a “reasonable
man” and he should have reasonable
instincts, and that is about as far as one could go
on the subject of who is and who is not suitable
be a non-executive director”
– Sir Ronald Grierson, European Chairman,
Blackstone Group, and former Vice President, GEC
“When it comes to it, most people put their
hands up and say: “If the shareholders are
against this sufficiently, we will go quietly
rather than make a fuss.” Institutional
investors can be a catalyst for change and a
catalyst for improved performance in companies,
as the board themselves can be too
blinkered to see that change is necessary.”
– Alastair Ross Goobey, Chairman,
International Corporate Governance
Network, and Senior Advisor, Morgan
Stanley
“As we try to put better models in place
for Europe, I think our first priority, and
our best goal, would be to eliminate
those differences that create significant
barriers to a European capital market
and discourage investors from one country
to invest in another. Having a proper
market the size of this Continent would
allow us to rely on the market, going
beyond a simple theoretical model and
seeing it actually work in practice.”
– Professor Antonio Borges, Vice
President, Goldman Sachs
“Corporate governance is more about
chains, and the chains can be extremely
complex – like playing threedimensional
chess at times. Investors, not
companies, should control the chains.
However, to do that, investors have to
be properly resourced, they have to
understand what they are doing, and
they have to do it in a way that is
consistent with their clients’ interests.”
– Guy Jubb, Head of Corporate
Governance, Standard Life
The Europaeum
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