The art of good legislation is knowing what to legislate. Every time there has been a corporate scam, we have rushed to legislate compliance, only to be followed by a smarter scam. Corporates hire people whose job is to go around legislation, and they pay them a lot for doing this. Legislators are paid far less, and are always working on hindsight. The British call it shutting the stable after the horse has bolted.
If I were a legislator, I would focus on transformation of the ethical culture. I would legislate the teaching of business ethics as a mandatory foundation subject to all B School graduates. One would be surprised how few B Schools teach Business Ethics as a separate subject (I mean core business ethics, not Business Laws or Corporate Governance laws). It needs a Dean with a lot of foresight and courage to accomodate BE in a curriculum that is crowded with job-oriented themes (my good friend Prof Sudarshan is one of these few). At least a few of them have the honesty to admit that BE is not going to help their students land jobs.
Teaching students the nuances of business ethics would help them, when they join the mainstream, to discern right from wrong, identify spin doctoring, challenge their superiors and blow the whistle. At the least, they would be able to make conscious ethical judgements rather than allow their ethical knowledge and standards be shaped by what they see happening around them in the company. Even if 25% of these students become ambassadors of good BE, we would have made a change, a transformation.
Are the Deans and Legislators listening?
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