Enforcing Rules For Capitalists

Canadians have read and heard much about the Conrad Black trial, but many missed an important point. That being: Would the former media baron and his co-defendants have been prosecuted with the same vigour here as we saw in the court in Chicago?

We'll see the role of the Canadian system in November when charges from the Ontario Securities Commission are heard.

We supposedly live next door to the land of "hard capitalism," but past cases leave us wondering if our misbehaving fat cats get away with more than theirs do.

A report entitled Corporate Governance in Canada and the United States: A Comparative View, produced by the Canada Institute of Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, suggests just that.

The report discusses the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed by the U.S. Congress in reaction to major corporate scandals of recent years. That legislation, which Canada lacks, provided clarity about responsibilities of top corporate people and penalties for non- compliance.

The report faults the "highly fragmented system in Canada -- with multiple provincial and territorial securities regulators, federal financial institution regulators, provincial and federal corporate laws, enforcement authorities at all three levels of government .

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