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Abstract The purpose of this study is to discuss some issues on the corporate governance in Taiwan, especially the issues related to corporate laws, bases on the reasons of the financial crises emerge in the listed corporation in the past few years, so as to investigate and analyze the effects of the amended corporate laws on corporate governance, and bring up the directions for the future amendment of corporate laws and the suggestions for the construction of corporate organization. Differs from the analysis of the numeral data of the general empirical literature, the methods of literature discussion, laws analysis and in-dept interview are applied to this study in order to examine the corporate governance of the corporations with financial crises from the perspectives of laws and practical execution. The following conclusion is deduced from this study: 1. In addition to the impact of economic recession, in the past few years, the financial crises occurred in the listed corporations were mostly resulted from the man-made abuses conducted by the similar tricks such as backdoor listing, cross holding for bidding up prices, high mortgage, and embezzlement. Furthermore, the insufficiency in the information openness is also a common reason for it. To make it worse, due to the demoralization of the supervisors, the inner/outward governance fails to work efficiently, and, thus, the abuses could only be disclosed after the financial crises of the corporation occur. 2. The problems such as defalcation and embezzlement are quite critical to the corporations that encounter financial crises. Informal transactions allow the corporation mangers to evade the laws and benefit themselves. This is a proof of the loopholes of the laws. Furthermore, as the penalty is not stiff enough, it becomes the main reason for the managers take the risk and violate the morals. 3. In Oct. 2001, the corporate law was amended by the Legislative Yuan after the Third Readings. After doing research and interviewing experts, it’s found that the positive effect of the amendment of corporate law on strengthening governance may be limited as it could not prevent the issue of defalcation from happening. Especially, after the Enron event, even the honorable and independent system of directing supervisors cannot avoid from being questioned. In the said law amendment, corporate self-governing spirit is adopted in the regulations concerning the criminal offense, and the related penalties are exempted. Besides Article 9, 19, 232, and 313, the articles that involve sentence and fine, all the other articles are amended into administrative penalty. This could be considered as a breakthrough of this amendment. Those who involve in treachery will be sentenced according to the treachery regulation of the criminal law. However, it’s believed that the identification of the treachery is questionable. As the penal cost of the managers in violating laws is reduced relatively, it will have ill effect on the corporate governance. In terms of information openness, as it’s regulated in the amendment law that anyone can consult or copy the information, including company name, address, name of the directing supervisors, capital, and corporate bylaws, from the authority concerned, the registration of the corporation is brought into the open. Hence, it contributes to the understanding of the transacting managers, and the disclosure of, e.g., the stocking holding rights of the directors. However, such a contribution will not have great effect on strengthening the corporate governance. Accordingly, such law amendment enhances the self-governing function of the corporations, and reduces the governmental control towards the corporations. Relatively, it reduces the penal cost of the managers who violate the morals and involve in risky adventure. In regard to the purpose of strengthening the information openness, it could hardly be obtained as the independence of the supervisors and managers is still insufficient enough. Therefore, although the information is disclosed, its accuracy is questionable. Since the effect of preventing the happening of defalcation may be limited, no matter to corporate or individual investment, the risk will be increased.
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