"Apple Pie" Governance Ideals Still Debated

Independent directors. Greater disclosure. Rules to protect minority shareholders. While these seem like hot dog and apple pie items --corporate-governance issues about which there should be no controversy --not all the world sees them that way. They're still issues of debate in South Korea, for example, and even in France and Italy, where reform has been taking place, but practice has yet to catch up with principles, notes the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), which is urging the world's 29 most industrialized nations to give priority to corporate-governance matters.