THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
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from Page2 : GOVERNANCE
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The report of every committee be
signed and laid before the Court of
Directors the following meting.
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The Directors are not authorized to
create any new office either at home or
abroad with any salary exceeding one hundred pounds per annum without the
approbation of the Court of Directors.
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The list of candidates for the
Directorship shall be published fourteen days
before the annual election. Such list would contain the names of such
proprietors, and their desire of becoming candidates for Directorship.
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All accounts shall be examined by the
respective committees and pass the
Court of Directors quarterly and no money shall be advanced to any clerk or
warehouse-keeper after Quarter-Day, until his last quarter’s accounts are
settled.
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No motion shall be made in the
General Court to forgive any offenses
committed by any of the Company’s servants or to make any grants of any
sum of money out of the Company’s cash without previous notice of at
least
seven days given in writing by the persons who have any such motions to
propose.
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When any Director goes to reside
beyond the sea, the Company shall make a
vacancy of his directorship and whenever there shall be a vacancy of the
place of a Director, by death, resignation incapacity or otherwise, another
person shall be chosen within a convenient time.
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Any person guilty of the breach of
the By-Laws rendered incapable of any
employment in the Company
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None of the existing By-Laws and any
that shall thereafter be made, shall be
altered, repealed or suspended without the consent and approbation of two
General Court to be called for that purpose.
Thus, the EIC had a well-defined code
of governance which can be compared with
the code of corporate governance of many present day companies. Though
historical evidences show that there were violations of the code and many top
officials of the EIC made fortunes by playing with the laws and orders, but that
the
Company had such a well defined code of corporate governance even in those
days is in fact praiseworthy.
References:
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Chaudhuri, K.N. The Englis h East
India Company: The Study of an Early Joint Stock
Company, 1600-1640, Frank Cass & Co Ltd, London, 1965.
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Chaudhuri, K.N. The Trading World of
Asia and the English East India Company-
1660-1760, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978.
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Banerjee, D.N. Early Administrative
System of the East India Company in Bengal, Vol
I (1765-1774), Longman, Green & Co. Ltd, 1943.
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Carey, W.H. The Good Old Days of
Honorable John Company, Edited by Prof. Nisith
R. Ray, Riddhi India Calcutta, First Edition 1882, Riddhi Edition 1980.
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By-Laws, Constitutions, Orders and
Rules for the Good Governance of the
Corporation of the United Company of Merchants of England, Trading to the
East-Indies and for Better Carrying on and Managing the Trade of the said Company,
1774.
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Keay, John. The Honourable Company,
A History of The East India Company, Harper
Collins, London, 1993.
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Edwardes, Michael. A History
of India, The New English Library, London, 1967.
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Wilson, John E. An Empire of Free
Trade: The East India Company and the making
of the Colonial Marketplace, Addison Wesley Longman Higher Education, 2003.
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Farrington, Anthony. Trading Places:
the East India Company and Asia, History
Today, 2002.
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Micklethwait, John & Adrian
Wooldridge. The Company: A short history of a
revolutionary idea, Modern Library Chronicles, 2003.
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Lawson, Philip. The East India
Company-A History, Longman Group, UK, 1993.
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