Dr Barnali Choudhury and Dr Martin Petrin, Senior Lecturers at UCL Faculty of Laws, were invited to present their research and participate in a roundtable discussion at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (SICL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, in May 2018. As part of an international event entitled ‘Fixing Societies by Fixing Business? Comparing Corporate Law Reforms’, Dr Choudhury and Dr Petrin analysed recent UK corporate governance reforms and their societal implications.
Corporate governance mechanisms are traditionally seen as devices for reducing agency costs between shareholders and managers in the context of private ordering. More recently, however, the UK and other governments have embraced regulations in the field of corporate governance as tools through which to impose public responsibilities on corporations. Among others, corporate governance mechanisms have been relied on to equalize wealth distribution, promote equality in the labour force, and pursue environmental goals.
The speakers looked at the justification, utility, and efficacy of using corporate governance to promote public aims, and argued that governments should view corporate governance mechanisms with public policy goals as complementary strategies, and not as substitutes, to direct external regulation.