‘Spider Network’, David Enrich’s evocative book reviewed here, tells the story of Britain’s Libor banking scandal, revealing a financial culture in which success is defined by the outcome of the next trade.
This important book is a must read for every board director. Boards who claim they were not aware of wrongdoings are in essence admitting their incompetence. Last week, Loblaw Companies Ltd. Canada’s largest retailer admitted to bread price fixing, which according to their CEO has been going on without the knowledge of senior management for fourteen years. So if senior management was not aware of this ‘arrangement’, as this fraud was called by the namby pamby Globe and Mail (see my letter to the editor here), it is safe to assume that the directors were not aware either.
So why do we have boards of directors again???
Andrew Faas (former senior executive with the Weston/Loblaw/Shoppers Group; author of ‘From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire’,; and a Public Voices Fellow at Yale University).
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