William G. Parrett, Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, has moderated a major session on Corporate Governance. The Financial Times described attendance as 'packed', whilst BBC News described the session as 'very refreshing'.

Setting the 2004 Agenda: Corporate Governance
While some progress has been made in reforming standards of corporate governance, solutions to lack of trust in business remain elusive.

Corporations have struggled to govern themselves ever since investors forced the Dutch East India Company to disclose profits, pay dividends and establish a non-executive board. That was in1612. The struggle isn't likely to end soon, agreed participants, as new pressures, laws, markets and risks continue to unfold.

But today's gravest unfolding risk hinges on how to respond to the relentlessly publicized corporate scandals. "We have an environment in which fraud and malfeasance have destroyed jobs and assets while chief executive pay goes up year after year" suggested William G. Parrett, Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, USA. "People have begun to question the structure of free enterprise: they are wondering where were the directors, the auditors, the lenders? And they are asking: is regulation the answer?"

Panellists included representatives from the OECD, Bain & Company, Barclays Capital and Yale School of Management

Read the session summary.