Where the failure patterns come from.

A construction and services group entered compulsory liquidation in January 2018 carrying large debts and pension liabilities. A joint inquiry by two House of Commons committees criticised the board's oversight of aggressive accounting, contract risk and dividend policy, and the assurance the board took from management and advisers.

A payments company filed for insolvency in June 2020 after acknowledging that purported cash balances of about 1.9 billion euros could not be substantiated. A German parliamentary inquiry examined the failures of supervision, audit and regulation around the company.

After two fatal 737 MAX accidents, shareholders brought an oversight claim against directors. In 2021 the Delaware Court of Chancery allowed the claim to proceed, finding it adequately alleged that the board had no board-level system for monitoring airplane safety, a mission-critical risk. The claim was later settled.

A listeria outbreak linked to an ice-cream producer led to a recall and deaths. In 2019 the Delaware Supreme Court held that a board of a company whose central business risk is food safety must make a good-faith effort to put a reporting system for that risk in place; the absence of any such system could support a claim against directors.

The group admitted in 2015 that diesel vehicles had been fitted with software to defeat emissions testing. Subsequent investigations and settlements examined a culture of pressure and deference and a supervisory structure in which challenge was rare.

A blood-testing start-up whose board was composed largely of prominent figures without laboratory, medical or regulatory expertise. In 2018 the company and its founder were charged by the securities regulator with fraud; the founder was later convicted.