Curtin Ltd is a medium sized retailer of fashion goods with some 20 outlets spread throughout Western Australia. A publicly listed company in Australia, it has pursued a growth strategy based on the aggressive acquisition of a number of smaller retail groups. This growth has gone down well with shareholders, and the Company has always paid a good dividend. More recently, however the share price has fallen and the Company recorded an operating loss. The CEO of Curtin Ltd is Rex Lord, a high profile entrepreneur. His dominance of the company was secured through his role as both Chairman and Chief Executive officer of the company. His control of his board of directors is almost total and his style of management such that his decisions were rarely challenged at board level. He felt no need for any non-executive directors drawn from outside the company to be on the board. Rex has dismissed the downturn in the Company operations as a temporary glitch.

Required:

Assess the extent to which Curtin's corporate governance arrangements and situation fail to constitute governance best practice. Identify the areas of non-compliance and briefly in a few sentences discuss how each area relates to this case.