With all the controversy over a string of high-profile company collapses, ASIC Chairman David Knott couldn’t have picked a better time to lash out at the corporate cowboys last week. Presenting the inaugural speech to the newly established Governance Research Unit at Melbourne’s Monash University, he admitted that while much had been done in the way of corporate governance during the 1990s, some companies missed the point, under-estimating the harm their actions could cause.

“What we under-estimated were some quite pernicious and endemic factors at play – a new outbreak of management greed, the failure of boards to put the brake on excessive and structurally unsound remuneration practices,” Mr Knott said.

Matched with one of the longest periods of market prosperity was the chance to make big money quickly, he said. It appears to have seduced not only corporate management, but also a range of market participants. “At least some auditors [have] foregone their ethics in return for record level fees and commissions,” he said.

And while Mr Knott’s comments didn’t paint a very pretty picture of corporate Australia, he did say that based on the information currently available to ASIC, the future looks a little brighter for corporate failures.

“I assess as a far greater risk the prospect that our economy and investor confidence will suffer adverse contagion as a consequence of America’s crisis,” he said.