Description

This topical seminar will deal with some of the chief issues raised in the European Commission’s Action Plan of 12 December 2012, that is, how to make corporate governance codes more effective. As the Response issued in December 2013 by the European Company Law Experts noted, the concept of “codes’ effectiveness” has two meanings: effectiveness of the ‘comply-explain mechanism’ (disclosure effectiveness) and level of adoption of the codes’ recommendations themselves (substantive effectiveness). The seminar will question whether it is, indeed, of crucial importance to keep the advantages of regulation by codes while finding adequate improvements of the quality of the reports and the explanations. The relationship and interaction between the content of corporate governance codes and disclosure will also be examined. The seminar will examine in addition the role of incentives and of both legal and non-legal sanctions as a way to improve the quality of corporate governance reports. The role(s) of public or private agents and agencies with inspection and monitoring in the process will be discussed too. Given the introduction of a revised corporate governance code at the end of 2012 in Singapore, which has generated considerable discussion, the seminar should be of interest to a wide audience.

About The Speaker

Arad Reisberg is a Reader in Corporate and Financial Law at the Faculty of Laws, UCL, and Director, UCL Centre for Commercial Law. Between 2009-2012 he acted as the Faculty’s Vice Dean (Research). He was formerly a Senior Arts Scholar (2001-2003) and a Tutor at Pembroke College Oxford, where he taught law at 6 other colleges at Oxford University (2001-2005), a Lecturer at Warwick Law School (2005-2006) and a Visiting Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School (Fall Tern 2012). He is currently a Visiting Professor of Law at NUS (August 2014). Arad is the recipient of numerous academic scholarships and awards and an Academic Member of European Corporate Governance Institute. He is author of Derivative Actions and Corporate Governance (OUP, 2007), co-editor of Pettet’s Company Law 4th ed (Pearson, 2012), and a contributing author to Annotated Companies Legislation (OUP, 2012). Arad also sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journal International Corporate Rescue and the Journal of Corporate Ownership and Control.