Corporate governance

Corporate governance is the system by which companies are directed and controlled. Boards of directors are responsible for the governance of their companies. The shareholders' role in governance is to appoint the directors and the auditors and to satisfy themselves that an appropriate governance structure is in place. The responsibilities of the board include setting the company's strategic aims, providing the leadership to put them into effect, supervising the management of the business and reporting to shareholders on their stewardship. The board's actions are subject to laws, regulations and the shareholders in general meeting.

The corporate governance environment in the UK has been evolving since the late 1980s following a number of high profile corporate scandals. In 1992, a committee chaired by Sir Adrian Cadbury issued the Cadbury Report on corporate governance. Over a number of years, the Cadbury Report and other recommendations were brought together into a single code of recommended corporate governance known as the UK Corporate Governance Code (UKCG Code), published by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

The corporate governance regime

Our Overview: The corporate governance regime—overview provides an outline of the essential

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Latest Employment News

Employment weekly highlights—5 June 2025

This edition of Employment weekly highlights includes: (1) an analysis of the recent immigration White Paper by Ben Maitland of Vanessa Ganguin Immigration Law, (2) an analysis of reforms to reduce discrimination in the Local Government Pension Scheme by David Gallagher and Daniel Fowler at Fieldfisher, (3) an EAT decision that a claimant’s aversion to wearing a mask lacked the necessary cogency, seriousness, and cohesion to qualify as a protected philosophical belief, (4) an ET decision that a teacher’s dismissal was not the result of her whistleblowing over the school’s policy on trans children, (5) an analysis of a Court of Appeal decision that UK gender recognition certificates do not allow gender to be recorded as non-binary by Harini Iyengar at 11KBW, (6) a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research on the challenges surrounding surveillance in the workplace, (7) the publication of the latest UK Stewardship Code by the Financial Reporting Council, (8) new guidance and legislation on amendments to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, (9) a successful appeal to the EAT against a ‘gisting order’ in an unfair dismissal claim amid national security concerns, (10) two new Practice Notes on providing toilet, washing and changing facilities in the workplace following the Supreme Court decision in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers, and on the right to disconnect produced in partnership with Rosie Moore and Simon Swaine of Lewis Silkin, (11) dates for your diary, and (12) other news items of interest to employment practitioners.

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