The Legal Character of Private Codes of Conduct: More than Just a Pseudo-Formal Gloss on Corporate Social Responsibility
![handle is hein.journals/hbuslj2 and id is 291 raw text is: THE LEGAL CHARACTER OF PRIVATE
CODES OF CONDUCT:
MORE THAN JUST
A PSEUDO-FORMAL GLOSS ON
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Veronica Besmer*
I. INTRODUCTION
Perhaps no other event has shaken the business environments of the
industrialized economies more than the recent corporate governance
scandals. Shortly after the record-breaking bankruptcies of Enron and
WorldCom in the U.S., the infamous tidal wave swept the Old Continent.
In 2003, the Italian food giant Parmalat became Europe's Enron with an
accounting and securities fraud that the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) called one of the largest and most brazen corporate
financial frauds in history.1 Neither shaky corporate governance nor
bankruptcies are novel. What makes the recent round of scandals mind-
boggling is their magnitude: the combined market capitalizations of Enron
and WorldCom that were wiped out exceeded the individual gross domestic
* J.D. Candidate, University of California, Hastings College of Law, 2006; Bachelor of
Science, summa cum laude, University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business,
2000.
1. Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Release No. 1936, [Transfer Binder]; see also
SEC v. Parmalat Finanziaria S.p.A., No. 03 CV 10266, 2003 SEC LEXIS 3078, at *1
(S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 2003).
HASTINGS BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hbuslj2&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Legal Character of Private Codes of Conduct: More than Just a Pseudo-Formal Gloss on Corporate Social Responsibility
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