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Fighting Corporate Abuse

Fighting Corporate Abuse

Beyond Predatory Capitalism

by Corporate Reform Collective

Critique of current corporate practice that offers practical proposals for the creation of a more responsible and accountable form of capitalism

Fighting Corporate Abuse demonstrates, through compelling and revelatory analysis, the legislation and regulation needed to deal with the abuses in the corporate sector that have been revealed in recent years. It highlights the more general contribution of company law and practice to the current crisis in capitalism.

The first section develops a controversial argument, using detailed illustrations and vivid examples which show how the various abuses of predatory capitalism have been carried out through the manipulation of the corporate form and the creation of highly complex corporate groups. The group of authors, all experts in their fields, tackle head-on the issues of tax evasion, extraction of value and asset stripping, environmental destruction and managerial self-interest. In doing so, they paint a picture of a system that is abusive, and degenerated, but also a system which can be reformed.

In the run up to the UK general election, the authors develop of a set of practical proposals for an incoming government, outlining how each of these abuses could be curtailed and how a more acceptable and accountable form of corporate capitalism can be developed through national and international action.

Drawing on the group's activism, as well as their academic experience in law, politics, economics and human rights, this will be an authoritative as well as a highly practical book.

The members of the Corporate Reform Collective are: Tom Hadden (Emeritus Professor, Queens University Belfast), Paddy Ireland (Professor of Law at the University of Bristol Law School), Glenn Morgan (Professor of International Management at Cardiff Business School), Martin Parker (Professor of Organisation and Culture at the School of Management, University of Leicester), Gordon Pearson (author of Strategic Thinking, Integrity in Organizations), Sol Picciotto (Senior Adviser to the Tax Justice Network), Prem Sikka (Professor of Accounting at the Essex Business School) and Hugh Willmott (Research Professor in Organisational Studies at Cardiff University).

'Offers a no-nonsense guide to understanding the exploitative architecture of the modern corporation, the key institution at the heart of the global economic system' - Brett Scott, author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money
Introduction
Part I: The Abuses
1. Tax Evasion and Avoidance
2. Cover-Up Accounting and Auditing
3. Avoiding Liability
4. Extracting Value
5. Managerial Self-Interest
6. The Mirage of Corporate Social Responsibility
7. Bad Banking and Market Manipulation
Part II: The Reforms
8. A New Political Economy for the Corporation
9. Controls on Multinationals
10. Controlling International Tax Avoidance and Evasion
11. Reforming Systems of Governance, Accounting and Auditing
12. Banking Reform and the Control of Market Manipulation and Short-Termism
13. Small and Locally Based Alternatives
14. Towards New Corporate Forms
Notes and Additional References
The Corporate Reform Collective
Index
Published by Pluto Press in Jul 2014
eBook ISBN: 9781783711956

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