Still much to be done: Corporate governance in Poland

The development of public corporations and stock markets in Central Europe has led to the appearance of such fundamental governance problems as expropriation of minority shareholders, managerial myopia, tunnelling and others. The existing regulations and governance arrangements provided under privatisation schemes were unable to accommodate these deficiencies. The market response to that situation comprised bottom-up initiatives developed within the NGO sector (shareholders associations, best practice codes, governance-dedicated websites) and top-down reforms (corporate law adjustments, transposition of UE directives). One of the key elements of these reforms is how to make supervisory boards more independent (from the blockholders) and professional.