TOPIC: APPRAISAL OF THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE RELATED TO COMMERCIAL BANKS IN UGANDA NAKANYIGA, DAPHINE

Corporate governance is concerned with the relationship between company boards and the company's shareholders, accountability and responsibility towards the stakeholders. Ideally, good governance should facilitate efficient, effective and entrepreneurial management that can deliver long-term shareholder's value. However, several significant banking scandals took place in recent years reflecting weakness in the legal aspects of corporate governance, for example the Lehman Brother Scandal. This is because, although countries have several laws which promote good corporate governance, they are not adequately being enforced by the respective companies. In light of this emerging corporate governance challenge, this study set out to examine the legal aspects of corporate governance in commercial banks in Uganda. Doctrinal legal research methodology was used where both primary and secondary information was sourced and utilised. Under the legal framework, the legal aspects related to corporate governance are stipulated in the Companies Act 2011, Banking Act 2017 and Code of Commerce 2010. Despite the availability of the laws related to corporate governance, issues in Uganda like legal provisions on the duties of directors, on the roles of the shareholders and the regulatory bodies, the challenges exists on the applicability or the enforcement of these laws in the commercial banks. This has a negative impact on governance of the commercial banks because the stakeholders tend to perform their duties not in accordance to the law; which in a long run results to collapse of the commercial bank. Therefore, the researcher recommends that the stakeholders in the different financial institution like the directors and the shareholders should comply at all times with the corporate governance related legal provision in different Ugandan laws. In addition, Corporate Governance Codes of best practice should be developed through evaluating the legal framework's quality and effectiveness