Governance proposals vex business

LEADING British companies are becoming irritated at the increasingly burdensome demands made by advocates of better corporate governance, writes Paul Durman.

Michael Lawrence, chairman of the Hundred Group of finance directors, will today tell the CBI that business leaders are losing patience with the 'proliferation of material from a wide range of bodies, all telling us what we should and should not put in our reports and accounts'.

Mr Lawrence said: 'I doubt the added value to shareholders of some of these proposals.'

He is finance director of Prudential, the life insurance giant, which is known to think the corporate governance debate is getting out of control. As well as criticism of the huge sums paid to Mick Newmarch, its chief executive, Prudential has recently come under fire for appointing as non-executive directors the bosses of companies in which it has large stakes.