Individual greed on a spectacular scale. A shocking willingness to overlook questionable practices by institutions claiming to uphold the highest standards. A shameful determination to cover up evidence. Politicians eager to accept money from a company subsequently shown to be a sham.

These are the hallmarks of the Enron scandal. Though the investigations into the company are continuing, and criminal prosecutions may follow, we cannot wait to learn the lessons. They are already clear. They must be acted on now. In this special report, we set out the FT's view on how to achieve this.

The most serious aspect of the scandal is the way in which the checks and balances that safeguard investors, employees and creditors were all found wanting. But Enron is not the only company whose problems raise questions about the business framework.

The accounting excesses that accompanied the high-technology bubble; the collapse of so many once high-flying companies; the sudden discovery, in an economic slowdown, of debts hidden or ignored off-balance-sheet during the boom; and the recurrent episodes of rogue trading. All these episodes have shaken public confidence in big business and the way it is conducted.

Coming amid so many causes for public concern, Enron will mark a watershed. In the depression of the 1930s, the banking crisis and the collapse of utility holding company pyramids led to wholesale regulatory reform in the US. Enron's collapse should set in train a similar process.

The world needs a web of self-reinforcing reforms. This is not just an issue for the US, though some of the most egregious recent problems have arisen there. Other developed economies are vulnerable to similar weaknesses, as the scandals of the 1990s indicated.

To be effective in today's globalised markets, regulation needs to be implemented to similar standards everywhere. And part of the solution to problems in any one country is to learn from similar difficulties abroad.

Reforms in the US will have repercussions everywhere. It is the largest developed economy. It is the most important single capital market. And it is home to the largest concentration of multinational companies by far. But the rest of the world cannot simply leave the burden of reform to the US. No country can claim a clean bill of health, as corporate disasters such as Marconi in the UK and Kirch in Germany illustrate.

The necessary post-Enron reforms should therefore be implemented worldwide. Indeed, this is an opportunity to take a further step forward in the standardisation of financial and corporate regulation. It should not be treated as an opportunity for cross-border recriminations, or for national "not invented here" foot-dragging. This mutual acceptance of the need for reform should be eased by the abrupt puncturing of US complacency about its standards of corporate governance, accounting and auditing.

The reforms that are needed fall into four main areas.

* What can be done to make corporate boards supervise companies better?

* How can we make accounting more transparent and auditing more effective?

* What reforms are needed in the regulation of trading businesses, the markets in which they operate and banks' lending practices?

* How can we make external checks and balances more effective, by improving the performance of credit rating agencies, stock market analysts, journalists and politicians?

The accompanying articles deal with these issues in depth. But underlying all the reforms suggested is a deeper change in attitude and approach.

Past reform efforts have tackled specific problems by imposing tighter, more detailed, more prescriptive regulations. The draft US accounting standard on off-balance-sheet entities - one of the issues at the heart of Enron's crisis and a subject so controversial that a revised standard has been in preparation for two decades - runs to 804 pages.

Accounting is not the only area bedevilled by complexity and detailed prescription. Similar problems apply to a host of other regulations, ranging from corporate governance to the proposed new Basle II standards for bank capital. Though the US is the leader in the rush to detail, it is not alone.

Detailed prescriptions suffer from a fatal flaw. By spelling out in excruciating detail what auditors, directors, bank managers and other responsible parties must do, they create the possibility of observing merely the letter of the law. As long as you have complied with the manual - or persuaded some luckless auditor that you have done so - your real actions and purpose can be as reckless or flagrant as you like. Since no set of regulations, no matter how detailed, can outmanoeuvre a really determined manipulator, the rules provide, in effect, a road map for abuse.

Worse, this approach leads to a downward spiral. Each scandal leads to calls for more detailed prescription, further entrenching the mentality that rules are for lip service only and that the hallmark of an effective operator is to find ways of circumventing them.

So the most important reform - one that runs throughout the accompanying articles - is to move towards a simpler set of rules, coupled with a new determination on the part of all participants to act in accordance with their spirit, not merely their letter.

This approach takes different forms in different areas. In accounting, for example, it requires a greater emphasis on form over substance. In auditing, it requires practitioners to make a judgment about whether the accounts allow an observer fully to appreciate a company's financial position. In banking, it requires managers to assess the real economic impact and purpose of a transaction, not merely its legal form.

A change of attitude of this sort will not stop fraud. But it will make it easier for others to resist the blandishments of the fraudster. And, by restoring public trust in routine trans-actions, it will stop the poisonous erosion of confidence in everyday activities and financial reports that has been so marked a feature of past weeks.

Trustworthy business standards are among the most important social capital that the developed world possesses. In spite of the weaknesses that the Enron crisis has revealed, most of this invaluable asset remains intact; indeed, parts of it are stronger than ever. But those weaknesses are genuine and, if left unremedied, could ultimately imperil a precious collective achievement.

A determined and coherent inter-national programme of reform will protect this inheritance and ensure that we pass it on, enhanced by our stewardship, to future generations.