Oh, I kid the directors! Who would think of such a thing?
Well, the folks in India for one. Bloomberg reports that, after a series of
corporate frauds, the Indian government is attempting to raise the
country's corporate governance standards by requiring that
independent directors on corporate boards pass an exam as a
precondition to their appointment, according to the Indian official
in charge of corporate affairs. Following a number of bank frauds,
allegations of improper lending, defaults that nearly triggered a
financial crisis and bankruptcies among billionaires, "[w]ho
will watch the watchdogs has become a burning question in
India." Indian law requires that one-third of the board of
each listed company be composed of independent directors.
Commentators suggest that independent gatekeepers should have been
on top of these problems before they ripened into crises.
