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Corporate Governance and Ethics: The Case of Gatekeepers in the New Global Environment

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Integrity in Organizations

Part of the book series: Humanism in Business Series ((HUBUS))

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Abstract

This chapter seeks to examine governance and ethical issues in global credit-rating agencies (CRAs) before and after the onset of the 2007 global financial crisis (GFC), and to suggest the way forward. This case study relies extensively on laws and statutes as primary data; and case laws, corporate annual reports and other academic research books and research papers as secondary data. The scope of the study will be limited to the Big Three (Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s) CRAs and in the United States and European Union contexts. The study approach, relying on the legal-economics perspective, is underpinned by the argument that new laws and regulations may not sufficiently provide effective solutions to the GFC, or even to the current European financial crisis (EFC), unless the present system’s deficiencies, misjudgements made in the past and future plans to deter these problems are in place. This study further argues that transplantation of regulations across different economies may not work effectively unless these are guided by insights into the different contextual backgrounds.

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© 2013 Peter Yeoh

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Yeoh, P. (2013). Corporate Governance and Ethics: The Case of Gatekeepers in the New Global Environment. In: Amann, W., Stachowicz-Stanusch, A. (eds) Integrity in Organizations. Humanism in Business Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137280350_26

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