10.5.2 Aim of independence

The history of corporate governance in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden has illustrated the reasons behind the corporate governance reforms. The section with the history of the Netherlands even traces back to the start of the seventeenth century with issues regarding the separation of ownership and control in the Dutch East India Company. Centuries later, corporate governance reforms in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden have tightened the regulations regarding independence.

(Consideration 10.13) The idea behind the movement towards more independence is the improvement of the quality of supervision by supervisors. The lack of good (and independent) supervision was considered to be the main reason behind the corporate scandals at the end of the twentieth and the start of this century. These ideas were based on the economic theory and the agency theory in particular, which is described in chapter 3 of this study. The aim of independent supervision is to have less misconduct by executive directors and managers.