Corporate Governance Development in UK

1. The Combined Code developed after corporate failures in the late 1980s and early 1990s that caused government focus on listed companies and corporate governance.
2. The Combined Code developed from a number of different reports looking into different areas of corporate governance. 
3. This started with the Cadbury code of best practice in 1992 and was added to in 1995 with the Greenbury report arising from concerns about directors’ remuneration. In 1998 the Hampel report looked at the effectiveness of the Cadbury and Greenbury reports and whether the recommendations were working. 
4. The three reports became the Combined Code.
5. Later, in 1999, the Turnbull Guidance was published on internal controls and 
6. In 2003 in the aftermath of Enron, two separate committees were set up to look at the role of NEDs (Higgs report) and the role of audit and audit committees (Smith report).