Fraud and the Absence of Good Governance

This chapter focuses on good governance, because the fraud and corruption detected in major corporate scandals in recent years can, in many ways, be directly attributed to the failures of good governance. In fact, the absence of good governance is the single factor that caused the downfall of major public companies such as WorldCom,* Enron,† Tyco,‡ Bre-X Gold,§ and Health South.¶ Numerous other examples can be added to this list.