ABSTRACT
The ‘corporate governance’ had a long and complicated history. The ‘corporate governance’ was known by a number of names, previously including ‘mercantile law’, ‘contract law’, ‘company law’ and company secretaryship. Milestones in the development of corporate governance indicate the rough direction of travel of corporate governance and should dispel the naïve assumption that ‘governance’ began in 1992. The major recommendations and findings were consolidated in the Corporate Governance Code of the London Stock Exchange which was first issued in 2000 and has been regularly updated subsequently under the auspices of the Financial Reporting Council. Since the financial collapse attention has turned to the role of auditors in acting as the corporate governance safeguards. The large number of very significant corporate collapses in the last three decades led to calls for the relationship between auditors, companies and shareholders to be reviewed.
