Description

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

Equity investment is seen in both dominant and critical corporate law literature as a passive act that carries exclusively instrumental value. This conceptualisation legitimises shareholder paternalism in current corporate law norms and provides support for stakeholder welfarism reforms. Engaging with cogent emerging evidence on the preferences, motivation, and behaviour of contemporary individuals in the markets (retail investors and ultimate beneficiaries of funds), this lecture will argue that, for the majority of them, equity investment is increasingly experienced as a choice instantiating their personhood, identity, and moral agency, and thus carrying inherent value. AI has already started democratising finance so as to allow individuals to voice their opinions (e.g. ESG) and participate in corporate governance matters. The lecture will assess current AI products that have the potential to revolutionise investment trends and render more accessible and ‘user-friendly’ capital markets to individuals. The lecture will also address associated risks that AI can cause in this area and will propose a series of measures for a sound investment landscape. In parallel, the lecture will address the lessons that law can learn from social norm and moral philosophy theories, which demonstrate the merits of experimentalism and continuous social interactions between individuals in allowing for the emergence of new social norms and individual moral agents.