Corporate governance gets more transparent worldwide

0 Comments | USA TODAY, February, 2008 | by Edward Iwata

With trillions of dollars in capital sailing the globe in search of investments, the shareholders' crusade for more open, well-run companies is gaining strength across many major and emerging markets.

In what some call a worldwide corporate-governance movement, shareholders are pushing for stronger corporate-governance laws, teaming with investors from different countries and negotiating behind the scenes with businesses.

In earlier years, it was hard for shareholders to dig up details from thousands of global companies on their finances, their directors, executives' pay packages and other information critical to making investment moves.

"We've seen some dramatic changes," says Stanley Dubiel, head of governance research at RiskMetrics Group, the...