PROF. MARC GOERGEN ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Wall Street tries to weed out the wolves while London stays sheepish By Marc Goergen , Cardiff University When Mathew Martoma, the former portfolio manager of SAC Capital, was sentenced to nine years in prison for insider trading last week, much of the comment was about how harsh the punishment looked. It must have seemed particularly so to traders in the dealing rooms of light-touch London. In truth, Martoma should take some of the blame. Federal court judge Paul Gardephe justified the length of the sentence by the exceptionally high gains that he had made from this deal, his lack of repentance and his refusal to co-operate with the authorities. Martoma had been dealing on non-public information he had received from a doctor about clinical trials of a new Alzheimer’s drug. He received the private information on a Sunday in July 2008. The next day, SAC Capital sold its $700m stake in US-based Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Irish Élan Corporation , the two joint developers of the...

The questions below are taken from the supplementary material accompanying my book International Corporate Governance . The supplementary material is available from here for university teachers. How much do you know about corporate governance? » Create A Quiz