Today’s post comes from Oluwarotimi Adeniyi-Akintola, a PhD student in Aston Law School. Rotimi’s doctoral research focuses upon corporate governance forms within Nigeria. For more from Rotimi, please follow his twitter profile here and his blog page on Medium here . As you may have heard, Carlos Ghosn, one of the most prominent figures in the automotive industry, was arrested in Tokyo on November 19, 2018 . According to Japanese prosecutors, he stands accused of financial improprieties and the falsification of annual securities reports , which could result in a jail term of 10 years, a fine of 10m yen, or both. His arrest has sparked corporate crises across two continents and marks an astonishing reversal in fortune for a man many consider to be the lifeblood of the titanic Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi (RNM) alliance. In many ways, Ghosn’s story is a demonstration of how the concentration of power in key individuals can result in a complete failure of corporate governance at ev...

We have looked at issues within the Higher Education sector here in Financial Regulation Matters before, mostly in relation to student finances , student accommodation , and also sector-related pensions . However, after some recent developments it is important to take a look at Universities as institutions and, crucially, the position that regulators are finding themselves in, despite any ideological claims as to their operating mandate. As the story develops that, recently, a British University was essentially ‘bailed out’ by the Government, it will be of interest to examine the regulatory reality that the recently-formed Office for Students (OfS) has found itself being exposed to. It was reported towards the end of this week that ‘ a UK university had to be given an emergency loan of almost £1m by the higher education watchdog to stay afloat this autumn ’. The BBC continued by stating that the OfS provided the money when the university faced the prospect of running out of ca...

We know here in Financial Regulation Matters that the audit industry is currently reeling from a number of high profile scandals regarding their involvement in corporate collapses. KPMG’s role in the collapse of both Carillion and BHS, alongside the involvement of their Big Four counterparts in the same, and in different scandals has led to calls to break up the ‘Big Four’ auditors . Whilst we have discussed this issue before , the Big Four (at least members of the Oligopoly) have now proposed a different solution, and have taken strides to enforce their will by taking action. However, there are a number of vital questions that stem from their decision. KPMG, announcing the move on Thursday, stated that they are to drop the availability of consultancy, or ‘non-audit’ services to clients they are simultaneously auditing , focusing on FTSE 350 clients specifically. Whilst a date for the policy change has not been confirmed, the Chair of the firm’s UK division stated that the move...