The faring of Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis of 2008 is discussed against the background of legal instruments that were employed to avoid its failure. This discussion leads to the conclusion that in this case, the limits of classical legal instruments were reached. To further good corporate governance, the legal relevance of the term ‘integrity’ is explored. It is concluded that the legal term of integrity is used universally in corporate governance codes, but is not operational and therefore not enforceable. An attempt is made to redefine this general principle into a more operational term. This is tested in the case of Goldman Sachs’ executive Jon Winkelried. It is assumed that he has violated the standard of integrity but also that there were no enforceable legal means to sanction his behaviour. The conclusion is that the more operational interpretation of the term integrity could, in this case, have resulted in an enforceable legal instrument to sanction behaviour that is contrary to the norm of integrity. This operational term of integrity could aid in the debate on furthering good corporate governance through enforceable legal strategies.

This contribution analyzes whether the current focus of the EU regulator on empowering independent directors is effective in corporations with a concentrated (family) ownership structure. The basic hypothesis of this contribution is that, contrary to the excessively optimistic expectations of the EU regulator, there are serious inefficiencies in the concept of independent directors when it comes to concentrated (family) ownership structures. The contribution relies on a series of empirical studies indicating a positive correlation between operating performance and family influence in European stock corporations.