“Yes, there is discussion between big shareholders in different countries about how they view these issues in large multinationals in which they have shares. But we always have to be careful not to infringe the rules about acting in concert,” he said.

“Corporate governance isn’t just about wanting to replace directors: it’s much more about oversight and what is going on in company boards, and managing risks and interests of the company board and shareholders are properly aligned.”

Wood added that the power of shareholders was curbed by their distance from company boards.

“As a shareholder you’re almost three derivations away from what’s going on. To say that shareholders were a third step away [from company boards], and they fell down on their duties is somewhat harsh because they were dealing with imperfect information.”

Montagnon said the ICGN did not accept that the crisis was caused by a failure of corporate governance alone. Other determining factors included: the trade imbalance between the US and China, monetary policies deployed by central banks, the insufficient capital bases of certain large banks, accounting standards that permitted banks to dodge mark-to-market valuations and run satellite vehicles outside their balance sheets, plus regulatory shortcomings.

“Regulators knew more about what was going on inside the banks than shareholders and they didn’t act.”

But large shareholders could have used their influence to a greater extent.

“Sometimes, unfortunately, long-term owners weren’t as effective as they should’ve been.”