Corporate & Securities Law

Speech By SEC Commissioner Kathleen L. Casey: Corporate Governance Issues And Trends

By Toby Lucich

In the last year, three major studies have called into question U.S. competitiveness. Each concludes that America is losing ground to foreign markets. They suggest that these trends may be caused by foreign markets developing and evolving ? no more than a natural growth and maturation in markets abroad.

But they also question whether America's regulatory climate dissuades investment in our markets. For example, one of the reports concludes that our competitiveness concerns derive from needed reform in our legal system and regulatory approach.

In response to these reports, some argue that we must act now, or we will forever lose our competitive edge. Others warn that the concern is overblown and that any reforms would be a 'rollback' of investor protections and could be catastrophic for investors' interests.

For my part, I do not believe this is necessarily a binary choice. On the one hand, the sky is not falling ? America's capital markets remain rich, deep, vibrant and attractive; and while we may be losing global market share, there are likely many reasons for this trend, not all of our own making.

Speech By SEC Commissioner Kathleen L. Casey: Corporate Governance Issues And Trends

Full post as published by inside Sarbanes Oxley on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).