Individual accountability for corporate harms

Disqualification and the role of public enforcement

Bibliographic Data

ID14971308
AuthorsJoan Loughrey (0000-0003-0160-3762, Queen's University Belfast, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume33
Issue4
Pages534-555
Publication date2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGriffith Law Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1038-3441 • E-ISSN: 1839-4205
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10383441.2025.2502196
OpenAlexW4410287988
LanguageEN
References cited41

A number of jurisdictions including the UK and Australia use director disqualification as a public enforcement mechanism when responding to corporate harms that give rise to public anger and calls for executive accountability. Focussing on the UK, and referencing the on-going Post Office scandal as an example, this paper demonstrates that disqualification alone is an inadequate means of achieving accountability. This is not just because in the UK it is very rare for directors of large public and private companies to be disqualified. Even were this to change, disqualification would still not achieve retributive and rectificatory goals that-as this paper explores and argues-underpin public calls for individual executive accountability in the wake of corporate scandals. Rather it is aimed at public protection by removing miscreant directors from circulation, and at regulatory goals, that is, at shaping future behaviour through deterrence and standard setting. The literature has focussed on how effectively it achieves these regulatory goals and has overlooked the entirely separate question of whether, as policy makers claim., it adequately achieves accountability. The paper offers suggestions for reform that would address this lacuna, before concluding

Accountability · Business · Enforcement · Law and economics · Political science · Public relations · Publishing · Sociology · Corporate Law and Human Rights · Law · Regulation and Compliance Studies · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

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