Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, Second Edition

THE PAUL RUTHMAN COMMITTEE

This committee was constituted later to deal with the said controversial point of Cadbury Report. It watered down the proposal on the grounds of practicality. It restricted the reporting requirement to internal financial controls only as against ‘the effectiveness of the company’s system of internal control’ as stipulated by the Code of Best Practices contained in the Cadbury Report.

The final report submitted by the committee chaired by Ron Hampel had some important and progressive elements notably the extension of directors’ responsibilities to ‘all relevant control objectives including business risk assessment and minimizing the risk of fraud…’.