Company boards of directors were directly responsible, through their compensation committees and consultant advisors, for a sharp increase in executive compensation during the 2000s which may have contributed to excessive short-term risk-taking among financial services firms that helped trigger the recession. Furthermore, faulty corporate governance processes are attributed to the failure of risk management systems in many of the failed banks. The boards of directors of failed banks did not consider risk factors before approving the business strategy. In many banks, companies obviously lacked information on foreseeable risk factors and risk monitoring and management systems. The accounting and regulatory environment was not even effective. Once again Kirkpatrick (2009) stated that compensation systems were not aligned with the company's risk appetite, strategy and long-term sustainability. Buiter (2009) pointed out that there was very little transparency about the off-balance sheet items of complex financial products and the risk that financial institutions were taking on company shareholders