On January 15, Carillion plc, a U.K. construction and facilities management firm, entered into compulsory liquidation, following months of earings warnings and predictions of the multinational firm’s imminent demise. The Carillion collapse comes after a string of other scandals among private, publicly listed and public sector supplier companies, including BHS, RBS, Northern Rock, BT, Tesco, GKN, Serco, G4S. It again shows that compliance with the U.K. Corporate Governance Code, either the one in existence or the one proposed, can still do nothing to prevent bad actors from making bad decisions. The story has everything to enrage the public: mismanagement, ever larger dividends for shareholders and boardroom pay excess which together led to job losses, pension cuts for former and existing employees, and bankruptcy or major losses for smaller suppliers, public services and the taxpayer.
