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自1980年以来学术界就对公司法和公司治理,包括公司并购展开了研究。安然案件对研究成果中最核心的一些观点和做法提出了挑战,特别是对广泛接受的有关公司治理的模式至少提出了以下问题:第一,它给我们提供了一些新的理由质疑有效市场假说的适用。安然案中,尽管依赖有水分的审计报告的做法明显是不明智的,公司的股票价格还是达到了令人炫目的高度。第二,它动摇了我们对目前公司治理机制的信心。我们一直认为如果不能采取由股东自由介入市场从而对公司实行控制的控制机制,那么其次的选择就应该是由董事会施行监控职能——这种治理机制的核心就是一个具有监控职能的董事会,但是安然案动摇了我们对这样一个机制的信心。尤其是,在安然公司越来越倚重于以股价的波动来衡量和奖励管理人员的业绩的同时,安然董事会保护公司财务信息披露制度完整实施的能力却没有得到相应的加强。第三,它表明股票期权作为公司高层人员的一种薪酬方式是有其代价的,因为拥有期权有可能导致管理层过分乐于冒险。第四,它表明以股票为基础的员工薪酬制度和员工退休计划不能相互适应。概括来说就是,安然案对于越来越多的员工退休计划不再采用限定福利计划(de-fined benefit plan)而是采用限定投资计划(defined contribution plan)的这一转变提出了质疑,前一种计划使员工成为风险承担者和财务规划者,而后者使公司承担一定的风险并负有诚信规划的责任(fiduciary planning obligation)。尽管安然案触及的信息披露、监控及其他一些问题可能会引发一些有益的改革,这一案件也提醒我们,有一些问题的解决有赖于未必完美的激励制度与人们的自我约束。
Academics have conducted research on corporate law and corporate governance since 1980, including corporate mergers and acquisitions. The Enron case challenged some of the most central ideas and practices in the research. In particular, the following questions were raised about the widely accepted model of corporate governance: First, it provided us with some new reasons to question the Efficient Market Hypothesis The application. In the Enron case, the company’s share price has reached a dizzying heights despite the obvious unjustified reliance on water-based audit reports. Second, it has shaken our confidence in the current corporate governance mechanism. We have always believed that if the control mechanism by which shareholders are free to enter the market and thus control the company can not be adopted, the second choice should be to exercise the monitoring function by the board of directors - the core of this governance mechanism is a board with monitoring functions, but Enron The case shakes our confidence in such a mechanism. In particular, while Enron relies more and more on measuring and rewarding managers’ performance based on stock price volatility, Enron’s ability to protect the integrity of its financial disclosure system has not been strengthened accordingly. Third, it shows that stock options have a price to pay as a member of a company’s senior management, as having options may lead management to take risks. Fourthly, it shows that stock-based employee compensation system and employee retirement plan can not be adapted to each other. Broadly speaking, Enron challenged the shift to a de-fined benefit plan for a growing number of employee retirement plans with a defined contribution plan, The plan makes the employee a stakeholder and a financial planner, while the latter gives the company a certain amount of risk and a fiduciary planning obligation. Although Enron’s disclosure of information, monitoring and other issues may trigger some beneficial reforms, this case also reminds us that some problems are solved by the imperfect incentive system and people’s self-restraint.