Cadbury Report


The Cadbury Report, titled Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance, is a report issued by "The Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance" chaired by Adrian Cadbury that sets out recommendations on the arrangement of company boards and accounting systems to mitigate corporate governance risks and failures. The report was published in draft version in May 1992. Its revised and final version was issued in December of the same year. The report's recommendations have been used to varying degrees to establish other codes such as those of the OECD, the European Union, the United States, the World Bank etc.

Background

Sridhar Arcot and Valentina Bruno in their article called "In Letter but not in Spirit: An Analysis of Corporate Governance in the UK" explain the background to the Cadbury Committee. Although wrong on the historical facts, as Robert Maxwell died on 5 November 1991 and "The Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance" known as "The Cadbury Committee" was set up in May 1991 for other reasons than the Maxwell case, it gives an interesting reading of the situation at the time:

History lesson: Cadbury 1992

According to The National Computing Centre, 2010:
• Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance
• Division of top responsibilities:
– No one individual has powers of decision
– Majority of independent non-executive directors
– At least three non-executives on the audit committee
– Majority of non-executives on the remuneration committee
– Non-executives to be selected by the whole board"

Citations