Boards are supposed to monitor top executives, but too often give them carte blanche. That's why regulators are writing stricter rules for the corporate-governance game. Plus: Finance executives sound off about audit committees in a new CFO survey.

A new CFO survey suggests why new rules for auditors may be a wise idea.

Executive compensation practices won't change until accounting rules for options are fixed.

If banks have to come clean about their off-balance-sheet leverage, get ready to pay more for money.

Multinationals are still choosing to offer options. They just need to be tailored to local tastes.

"With the U.S. economy's spectacular performance over the last decade, why bother with the political instability, the double-digit inflation, and the local currencies [of foreign markets] that can implode overnight? One reason: 'That's where the growth is,' says Robert Gluck, vice president and treasurer of Bestfoods . . . Few U.S. companies, however, are chasing that growth. While strategic planners are willing to make large, risky technology investments of uncertain benefit, the same isn't true of foreign investments, whose risks and rewards are similarly difficult to quantify."

Companies are being pressured to eliminate classes of stock with supervoting rights.