Abstract

Despite differences in corporate governance systems in the United States and Australia, the corporate governance failures that led to each country’s largest bankruptcy are strikingly similar. WorldCom in the United States and HIH Insurance in Australia were both created by a rapid series of major acquisitions, failed after their last major acquisitions, and attempted to hide their declining performance with aggressive and/or fraudulent accounting practices. In this paper we present a clinical examination of the corporate governance failures that led to the demise of HIH Insurance and show that corporate governance failures are not endemic to the existing corporate governance system in the United States.

Document Type

Post-print Article

Publication Date

2003

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2003 Elsevier BV. Article first published in 2003.

The definitive version is available at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/research-in-international-business-and-finance

Full citation:

Buchanan, Bonnie, Tom Arnold, and Lance Nail. "Beware of the Ides of March: The Demise of HIH Insurance." Research in International Business and Finance, 2003, 199-221.

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