Corporate Governance and Legal Accountability: An Analysis of Recent Regulatory Reforms

Abstract

After corporate scandals, financial crises, and rising transparency and accountability demands, corporate governance has become essential to sustainable company operations and investor confidence. current corporate governance regulatory developments and their effects on legal responsibility and stakeholder rights. The study examines how regulatory developments in India—such as the Companies Act, 2013, SEBI amendments, and the emphasis on independent directors and board committees—and international frameworks like the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, the UK Corporate Governance Code, and the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act seek to balance managerial autonomy with shareholder and stakeholder interests. Improved disclosure regulations, tighter auditing standards, CSR obligations, and regulatory bodies' expanding engagement in compliance monitoring are given special attention. the success of these measures in reducing corporate misbehavior, increasing director and executive accountability, and promoting ethics. Regulatory reforms have enhanced governance frameworks, but enforcement, regulatory arbitrage, and tensions between formal compliance and actual accountability make implementation difficult. The evolving jurisprudence of corporate governance analyzes Indian and international experiences and argues that future reforms must integrate legal accountability with ethical responsibility to protect investor interests and align with societal and sustainability goals.