The Developments in corporate Governance is summarized as mentioned below. Corporate Governance began in the late 80s and early 90s after the scandal of Maxwell and Polly Peck. The Financial Aspects of the Corporate Governance Committee by Sir Adrian Cadbury was then formed to curb financial irregularities. The 1992 Cadbury report was then published with recommendations such as: role separation of the chairman and the chief executives of the organization, a balance and diverse board, selection of non executive directors, a need of good financial reporting and internal controls. The Cadbury report with its recommendations and code of best practice were added to the London’s Stock Exchange’s Listing Rules.

In 1995, The Greenbury report recommended disclosure of director’s remuneration in the annual report, it also recommended that a remuneration committee be set up of non executive directors, a majority of these recommendations too were added to the Listing rules.

In 1996, the Hampel report was set to examine the implementations of the Cadbury and Greenbury report and whether its objectives had been met. The Hampel report led to the Combined Code of Corporate Governance (1998), which covered the operations and structure of the board of directors, their remunerations, relation with institutional shareholders etc.

The Combined codes of 1998 and 2003 internal control required companies to provide an annual report statement as to how they applied the Code Provisions and Code Principle. This requirement led to the formation of the Turnbull Committee in 1998. This was carried out via the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales i.e. ICAEW, which resulted in the formation of the Turnbull Guidance.

In 2001, the “Myners Review” was commissioned by the government, to address the relationship between institutional investors and companies. The objective of the Myners Review was to keep in check factors that distorted the decision making of institutional investors.

The Directors Remuneration Reports Regulations was introduced in 2002, to give share holders the advantage of having more advisory power to approve the director’s remunerations report. These regulations increased the amount of information that was shared with share holders in terms of director’s remunerations.

In January 2003, the Higgs Report was published on the Role of Non Executives Directors effectiveness. Around the same time, The Smith Report was published by the FRC as part of Guidance on Audit Committees. This was followed by the Tyson report for recruitment and development of Non executive directors. The Higgs and Smith report led to Changes in Combined Code of Corporate Governance which was published in July 2003.

In 2004, the FRC made the Turnbull Group do a study on internal control i.e. Guidance for the board of directors on the combined code and whether updating the guidance was required. In March 2009, the FRC announced a review on Combined Code, where proposal consultations ended on 5th March 2010. The results of these consultation brought revision in the Governance Code, which were applied in June 2010.