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Robert Maxwell issued a video in 1989 and he declared to his company employee's ''Your Pension is safe with me'' (Greenslade, 1992). This video was issued shortly before the Maxwell scandal was uncovered as he was trying to lye with his employee's.

Maxwell had already experienced much controversy in the years, which had led to the corporate scandal (Ipsen, 1991). The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) declared him unfit to run any company twenty years before this scandal (Ipsen, 1991). DTI in 1969 actually declared Robert Maxwell unfit to carry any business activities and also declared him to perform such functions which involve any public fund. This was held when one of the renowned company of Maxwell 'Permagon' was in a process of takeover talk with Leasco who reported Maxwell inaccurate profit figures to the DTI (Thomas & Turner, 2006).

How could this have been prevented?

The scandal of Robert Maxwell occurred as Maxwell was the chairman and the chief executive of the Maxwell Corporation, which gave all the right and large amount of power in the absence of proper Corporate Governance (Maier, 2005). The Combined code recommends against this as it may be a conflict of interests (Combined Code, 2005). As Maxwell was performing the duties of Chairman and Chief Executive so it gave him too much power and it is possible that it was this power which allowed him to defraud his companies.

There was a different lack of Corporate Governance legislation or even guidance with the first piece not being introduced until 3 years later in 1992 by the Cadbury Committee (Untied Nations, 2003). The lack of guidance or legislation meant that Maxwell was in a position to defraud his employees by playing with their pension funds. Until then there were no specific guidelines to highlight how a company should be run and what are the duties of the directors or chairperson and because of this loophole he Maxwell fraud was not brought to light until it was too late.

Robert Maxwell company was listed in the stock exchange until the Maxwell scandal effected the organisation. However with Maxwell's employee's trusting him with their pensions this could have been one of the assurances which were given, had it been in place. To provide good internal control The Turnbull Guidance was actually designed and it also includes Risk management (ICAEW, 1999). The key failings of the Robert Maxwell scandal were internal control, as no other directors reported what Maxwell was up to, and conflict of interests with Robert Maxwell was the chairman and the chief executive (Maeir, 2005). The internal control failures of Maxwell were vast. Firstly Maxwell employed his son's as non executive directors, when non executive directors are meant to be independent (Maier, 2005). Secondly Maxwell was able to hide these massive debts without anybody realising, which section 4.28 of the Combined Code (1999/2005) aims to eradicate. The fact that Maxwell had already been exposed as being unfit to run a company, employees still trusted him with their pension premiums. However employees may have had little choice if this 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。