| The questions of the corporate governance have always been of high interest for academia and practitioners in the field of corporate law. This thesis investigates one of the most arguable points, i.e. how good independent/unrelated directors are for a corporation.;Firstly, there is a need to sketch out the basic nature of the corporate governance problem, i.e., the separation of ownership and control results in a potential conflict of interests between those who control and the owners.;Secondly, the role of the "independent" director in addressing the agency problem: why do we think that the independent director will protect the shareholders?;Thirdly, we are focusing on the empirical studies that have examined the issue.;Finally, we investigate the requirements in various jurisdictions. A key to this now is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the U.S., and securities legislation---in Canada, in particular, Ontario Securities Act. |
