The European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business (EWBCLB), National University of Singapore (NUS) co-organized the 4th EU- Asia Corporate Governance Dialogue in July 2017.

This Dialogue aimed at engaging academics and practitioners between the European Union and Asia in a constructive discourse on topical issues in corporate governance. The theme for the 4th Dialogue was on the role of corporate governance in a changing environment was attended by 94 participants. This year, the Dialogue started off with Dean of the NUS Law School, Professor Simon Chesterman giving the welcome speech and Professor Gerard Hertig of ECGI with the opening remarks. The first session of the Dialogue was on Agency Issues Revisited, with Professors Charlotte Ostergaard from the Norwegian Business School and Sumit Agarwal from Georgetown Business School presenting their research on “Why do Board Exist? Governance Design in the Absence of Corporate Law” and “Hard and Soft Information: Firm Disclosure, SEC Letters, and the JOBS Act” respectively. In the second session, Investor Power, Professors Gerard Hertig from ECGI and Gen Goto from University of Tokyo explored the topic by looking at Public-Private Partnership contracts (“Contracting for Resilient Infrastructures”, Hertig) and the role played by foreign investors in Japan’s economy (“Foreign Investor Voice in Japan: An Overview”, Goto). After the coffee break, Professors David Donald from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Zhen Li from NUS Business School discussed the topic on the Role of Politics by examining how corporate governance in the Asian context differs from that in the west (“Conceiving Corporate Governance for an Asian Environment”, Donald) and how corporate governance issues work in China (“China’s Closed Pyramidal Managerial Labor Market and the Stock Price Crash Risk”, Li). The Dialogue ended with Associate Professor Lan Luh Luh, NUS Law School, giving the conclusion and closing remarks.