This collection of essays describes and analyzes the legal regimes governing directors' liability for corporate fault and default across eleven important trading jurisdictions. It asks:
- Are the reform provisions, especially director duties of 'due diligence, ' sharply enough aimed to attain the goal of corporate accountability?
- Will it be easy or difficult for defendants to establish that due diligence was exercised?
- Is it possible that more reliance on self-policing may lead to less documenting and reporting of wrongs and dangers?
- What impact may schemes of greater self-monitoring have on State regulation?
- In what ways might corporations react to these demands that they become guardians of the public weal?
The authors -- each an authority in his or her respective jurisdiction -- recognize that the reforms are a reaction to the political problems created by the ill fit of the corporation with the economic and political value systems that we purport to hold dear. As they survey the ways that vibrant economies can frame laws to influence the conduct of directors and companies, they invite further exploration into the political, economic, practical, and evolutionary factors that may explain the convergence and divergence of both statute law and judicial doctrines and the desirability or inevitability of this deeply significant trend.