Online: Reforms and Recent Developments in the Japanese Corporate Governance Code

About this event

The Japanese Corporate Governance Code issued by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the largest securities market in Asia, sets the standards for governance for publicly listed companies on the Exchange. Corporate Governance standards are often perceived to affect the attractiveness of securities markets and have become a staple form of soft law governance complementing securities regulation.

The UCL Centre for Ethics and Law is proud to host Professor Hiroyuki Watanabe, Waseda University, who will speak on the recent reforms to the Japanese Corporate Governance Code introduced in June 2021. Professor Watanabe’s talk will be complemented by a panel of discussants from academia and the asset management industry. This event will be of interest to securities regulation and corporate governance academics and practitioners.

About the speakers

Keynote Address:

Professor Hiroyuki Watanabe, Waseda University (until 30 September 2021), Visiting Professor, Chubu University (from 1 October 2021),  Research Associate, Waseda University Institute for Business and Finance (from 1 October 2021)
Hiroyuki Watanabe had been a Professor at the Faculty of Law at Waseda University from Apr 2008 to Sep 2021. Since Oct 2021, he has been a Visiting Professor at Chubu University and Research Associate at the Waseda University Institute for Business and Finance. He has previously held visiting positions at the University of Tokyo (2003-2008), Max Planck Institution for Comparative Law and International Private Law (2008-2013). Hiroyuki is a joint author of Comparative Company Law～A Case-Based Approach (Hart Publishing, 2nd ed, 2018). He has been engaged in research and educational activities in the fields of corporate law and securities law, as well as in the areas of finance law and trust law. Under the recent situation where the world is online, he has been actively posing research results through SSRN (Social Science Research Network) and Oxford Business Law Blog which are major online international research network. Since the fall of 2020, more than 10 of his papers have been awarded the “Recent Top 10 Papers” on SSRN.

Panel of Discussants:

Professor Marc Moore, Faculty of Laws, UCL
Marc was appointed to the Chair in Corporate/Financial Law at UCL Laws in 2019. Prior to this, he was Reader in Corporate Law and MCL Director at the University of Cambridge.
Marc is the author of Corporate Governance in the Shadow of the State (2013, Hart), which was shortlisted for the 2013 SLS/Peter Birks Book Prize. In 2012, Marc was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for outstanding researchers who have made a significant contribution to their field of study. Marc is the co-editor (with Professor Christopher Bruner) of Hart Publishing’s Contemporary Studies in Corporate Law monograph series. He is Deputy Chief Examiner for Company Law on the University of London’s external LLB programme, and has previously held visiting teaching positions at the University of Auckland and Seattle University. Marc has been invited to give guest lectures and seminars in various countries, and is an advisor to the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) Court in Kazakhstan.  

Sachi Suzuki, Federated Hermes Asset Management Ltd
Sachi leads company and public policy engagements as well as voting activities in Japan. She is also responsible for the transportation sector. Prior to joining EOS, she worked as a senior research analyst at EIRIS, where she was responsible for the assessment of the ESG performance of Japanese companies, as well as research on bribery and corruption. Sachi graduated from Keio University in Japan with a degree in Economics and holds an MSc in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She holds the CFA UK – Investment Management Certificate.

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