Description

The UK Stewardship Code, the first of its kind in the world and for the UK Financial Reporting Council, seeks to encourage better dialogue between shareholders and company boards. First introduced in July 2010, a revised version of the Code took effect on 1 October 2012. Given the UK market’s role as a governance paragon, the code principles will be critical to practices of good stewardship taking root globally. Are good stewardship and innovation on balance promoted by more regulation or hindered by it, nationally and internationally? What is the evidence from the UK thus far? What has been the response from investors? And what can be learnt from the UK experience more widely?

About The Speaker

Arad Reisberg is a Reader in Corporate and Financial Law at the Faculty of Laws, University College London (UCL). He is also the Director of the UCL Centre for Commercial Law. Between 2009 and 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 and also taught law at 6 colleges at Oxford University between 2001 and2005. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at Oxford University (2005), a Lecturer at Warwick Law School (2005-2006) and most recently, a Visiting Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School (Fall Term 2012) where he taught an advanced course in corporate law. Arad is the recipient of numerous academic scholarships and awards, and has written widely on shareholder remedies and directors’ duties. He is an Academic Member of ECGI (European Corporate Governance Institute). He is author of Derivative Actions and Corporate Governance (Oxford University Press, 2007), the first book to provide a detailed and theoretical explanation of the law governing derivative actions, co-editor of Pettet’s Company Law 4th ed (Pearson, 2012), and a contributing author to Annotated Companies Legislation 2nd ed (Oxford University Press, 2012). Arad also sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journal International Corporate Rescue and the Journal of Corporate Ownership and Control.