EWBCLB & CLC Conference 2020: Coping with the Negative Externalities of Corporate Behaviour

Kristin van Zwieten (Oxford), Rachel Leow (NUS), Paul Davies (Oxford)

On 17 January 2020, the EW Barker Centre for Law and Business jointly organized a conference with the Harris Manchester College Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. Over 50 academics, judges, and practitioners from jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Israel, Scotland, and Singapore participated in the conference.

The organisers of the conference were Professor Paul Davies (Oxford), Dr Rachel Leow (NUS), and Dr Kristin van Zwieten (Oxford). This is the fifth joint conference between the EWBCLB and the CLC since the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two Centres in 2016.

The theme for this year’s conference was ‘Coping with the Negative Externalities of Corporate Behaviour’. The conference started with a paper from Professor John Armour (Oxford), who analysed the ways in which externalities could be framed most fruitfully. This was followed by a comment from Professor Georg Ringe (Hamburg).

Professor Alain Pietrancosta (Paris I) examined two French legislative changes, the first concerning corporate liability for acts committed by subsidiaries or within the company’s supply chain by entities outside the group, and the second concerning the encouragement of publicly traded companies to adopt an explicit raison d’être to supplement its standard commercial objective. Christian Hoffmann (NUS) commented on the paper.

Dr Rachel Leow (NUS Law) considered the use of ‘failure to prevent’ offences as a means of holding corporations criminally responsible, with Professor Robert Stevens (Oxford) commenting. She suggested that a better approach might be to reform the law of attribution in the criminal law along the lines adopted in the civil law, rather than to enact new ‘failure to prevent’ offences.

Mr Kenneth Khoo (NUS Law) considered possible constraints on the rights of Institutional shareholders who have substantial shareholders across companies, with Associate Professor Thom Wetzer (Oxford) commenting.

Professor Amir Licht presented an empirical study considering the relative importance of values, culture, and law in the way that directors make decisions concerning shareholders and other stakeholders, while Professor Paul Davies examined the potential effectiveness of the newly-revised UK Stewardship Code in shaping corporate behaviour. Comments on these papers were provided by Dr Kristin van Zwieten (Oxford) and Dr Dionysia Katelouzou (King’s College London) respectively.

Participants at the conference

Dr Rachel Leow (NUS Law) with Associate Professor Eva Michler (LSE) chairing

Professor John Armour (Oxford)

Mr Kenneth Khoo (NUS Law) and Associate Professor Thom Wetzer (Oxford)

Professor Amir Licht (Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya)

Professor Paul Davies (Oxford), with Professor Jennifer Payne (Oxford) chairing

Mr Timothy Liau (NUS Law) and Dr Kristin van Zwieten (Oxford)