Deepak Lal: Bilking shareholders

EXPERT VIEW

With the recent actual or near collapse of many Western banks and companies as a result of the credit crunch, the massive severance packages that the failed executives have nevertheless walked off with (most recently, the sacked CEO of AIG got $35 million having overseen $30 billion credit-related write downs and losses), added to the scandals following the dotcom boom (of which Enron was emblematic), seem to have led many to question the very basis of Anglo-American capitalism. Instead of being agents creating shareholder wealth, the corporations at the heart of this form of capitalism seem to have become instruments for enriching their managers by bilking their owners