Recently, I received notice of the following call for papers from the French association of Law Professors in Business Schools – the Association des Professeurs de Droit des Grandes Ecoles (“APDGE”).  The theme of the conference is “Governance and Compliance in Companies: Constraints or Opportunities.” Additional information is available below and at the conference website:

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TBS PDD

 3rd Conference of the Association of Law Professors of Les Grandes Ecoles/Business Schools, organized by Toulouse Business School

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Governance and Compliance in Companies: Constraints or Opportunities?”

December 3-4, 2015 – Toulouse Business School

Toulouse, France

Conference Website: http://www.tbs-education.fr/en/apdge-conference/

The taking into account of new legal rules (whether in Company Law, Banking Law, Tax Law, Environmental Law, Employment Law, Consumer Law, Digital Law, or in other fields of Law), involves increased attention to Governance and Compliance by companies, as well as by research professors.   The position of Chief Compliance Officer has become widespread within major companies, as have charters, codes of good conduct and codes of good governance.  Consequently, it is appropriate to look at Governance and Compliance in companies and to investigate whether or not they form constraints or opportunities for companies.    To what extent does the appearance of new legal and regulatory provisions represent new constraints for companies? On the contrary, may opportunities be detected in these practices in order to deal with upheavals in the Law?  What skills are necessary for lawyers in this new environment?  What are the roles of soft law and of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in this context?

These two research days propose to focus discussion on constraints and opportunities for companies in the development of the new rules and practices of Governance and Compliance.

This Call for Papers seeks to explore the following questions (as illustrations, not limitations):

  • The links between Governance and Compliance, on the one hand, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), on the other hand;
  • Programs to be put in place for a better compliance;
  • The role of lawyers  in Governance and Compliance;
  • Opportunities for good Governance and proper Compliance  for companies;
  • The impact of foreign laws on Governance (for example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act);
  • The legal risks in a breach of compliance;
  • Legal monitoring and anticipation of new legal and regulatory constraints;
  • Government procurement and a company’s history of Compliance ;
  • The interface between internal control (internal auditing, reporting, etc.) and the Law;
  • The legal challenges of whistleblowing;
  • The strategic role of Compliance;
  • The interface between company lawyers, external advisors and operational staff in Governance and Compliance;
  • The theory of groups of parent companies or subsidiaries and Compliance;
  • Control of the chain of sub-contractors and subsidiaries and Compliance;
    • Analysis of the effectiveness of soft law in Compliance;
    • Investors and Governance;
    • The comparative study of Governance. 

A publication of the best papers is foreseen.

Key Dates

Proposals: June 30, 2015

Full Text: September 1, 2015

Author Notification by the Scientific Committee: October 12, 2015

[More information after the break]

I just signed up for the SEALSB Annual Conference, which will be held in Atlanta, GA from November 12 through 14. I have attended and presented at the SEALSB Annual Conference each of the past two years. Both years we had a good group of professors.

The paper presentations are not limited by legal subject area, and the presentations in past years have covered issues in corporate governance, constitutional law, employment law, international law, sports and the law, franchise law, and other areas.

The conference is intended for “teachers and scholars in the fields of business law, legal environment, and law-related courses outside of professional law schools.” Most participants teach legal studies in business schools. I am told that those who interested in or exploring teaching legal studies outside of a law school are also welcome.

Conference registration information is available here

CRN: #46  Corporate and Securities Law in Society

 LSA 2015 Schedule

 

THURSDAY, MAY 28

 

 

2:45 PM – 4:30 PM

3319—Roundtable: Shareholders, Stewardship & Accountability

Room: Mercer 

 

 
 

FRIDAY, MAY 29

 

 

9:30 AM – 11:15 AM

3321—Corporations and Their Constituencies: Employees, Customers, Creditors, and the Public

Room: Adams

1:30 PM – 3:15 PM

3322—Banking, Securities, and Beyond: Evaluating Financial Regulation in Varied Contexts

Room: Adams

3:30 PM – 5:15 PM

3325—Business Decisionmaking and Business Law: Exploring Implications for Constituencies and Communities

Room: Adams 

5:30 PM – 7:15 PM

3326—New Insights on Law and Regulation’s Evolution and Efficacy

Room: Adams

SATURDAY, MAY 30

 

 

 

8:15 AM – 10:00 AM

3320—Ownership and Control: New Considerations on Litigation, Governance Structures, and Shareholder Activism

Room: Adams


Business and Human Rights Junior Scholars Conference
                          
The Rutgers Center for Corporate Governance, The University of Washington School of Law, and the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) announce the first Business and Human Rights Junior Scholars Conference, to be held September 18, 2015 at the Rutgers School of Law – Newark in Newark, New Jersey, just outside of New York City.  The Conference will pair approximately ten junior scholars writing at the intersection of business and human rights issues with senior scholars in the field.  Junior scholars will have an opportunity to present their papers and receive feedback from senior scholars.   Upon request, participants’ papers may be considered for publication in the Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ), published by Cambridge University Press.
 
All junior scholars will be tenure-track professors who are either untenured or have been tenured in the past three years.  The Conference is interdisciplinary; scholars from all disciplines are invited to apply, including law, business, human rights, and global affairs.  The papers must be unpublished at the time of presentation.
 
To apply, please submit an abstract of no

Emory’s Center for Transactional Law and Practice cordially invites you to attend its fifth biennial conference on the teaching of transactional law and skills. The conference, entitled “Method in the Madness: The Art and Science of Teaching Transactional Law and Skills,” will be held at Emory Law, beginning at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, June 10, 2016, and ending at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, 2016.

The registration fee for the conference is $189 and includes:

 Pre-conference lunch and snacks
 A pre-dinner reception on June 10
 Breakfast, lunch and snacks on June 11

We are planning an optional dinner for attendees on Friday evening, June 10, at an additional cost. Attendees are responsible for their own hotel accommodations and travel arrangements. Additional information on the optional dinner and accommodations to come.

A request for proposals will be distributed in the fall.

We look forward to seeing you in June of 2016!

Sue Payne
Executive Director and Professor in the Practice of Law
Center for Transactional Law and Practice
Emory University School of Law
sue.payne@emory.edu

CNM

On May 12, 2015, I will present at a breakout session of the Center for Nonprofit Management’s 8th Annual Bridge to Excellence Nonprofit Conference. My talk will focus on the legal issues facing entities with multiple bottom lines. 

If interested, you can register here.

As you can tell from the conference description, this conference is designed for nonprofit and community leaders. From the conference schedule, it appears that I will be the only professor presenter. While I enjoy academic conferences, and find them useful, I also think it is important for professors to engage with practitioners. Professors should share the knowledge they have uncovered and should also listen to the current, practical concerns. 

This coming Monday, I will be presenting – virtually – at the above titled conference. My piece of the presentation will cover my recent research on benefit corporation reporting.

Further information is available here and reproduced below. Personally, I am looking forward to hearing from the many impressive speakers, including Sara Burgess, the Regulator of Community Interest Companies in the UK.

May 11, 2015

08:00 AM – 06:00 PM ET

Morgan Lewis, in conjunction with the Impact Investing Legal Working Group, invites you to join us for an exclusive all-day conference featuring panels of leading lawyers who work in the area of impact investing—in business, academia, government, multilateral development institutions, and nonprofit organizations and foundations.

Topics will include:

How are investors aggregating capital for impact investing?

What are the newest social finance innovations in impact investing?

How can we build a robust legal community of practice in impact investing?

How can we advance the development of regulatory regimes and government policies that promote impact investing?

Details

8:00 – 8:30 AM | Registration

8:30 – 6:00 PM | Program

6:00 PM | Networking reception

View the agenda >>

Credit

CLE credit in CA (1.25 hours),

Marco Ventoruzzo (Penn State Law) alerts us to the upcoming international conference for the sixtieth anniversary of the Rivista delle società, which will be held in Venice, on San Giorgio Maggiore, on 13-14 November 2015. The title of the conference is “Rules for the Market and Market for Rules. Corporate Law and the Role of the Legislature.” The program and information on how to register (and other logistics) can be found here.  It looks like only an Italian version of the program is available on the website as of the time this is being posted, but I have an English version.  So, please just contact me if you want one.

Marco notes that the conference, organized every ten years by the Rivista, is one of the major events for corporate law scholars and practitioners in Italy (and probably in Europe as a whole). He anticipates well over 300 participants from several European countries, the U.S., and elsewhere. He notes that, as an additional incentive to participate, the venue is probably one of the most spectacular that can be imagined.  San Giorgio is a tiny island in the Venice lagoon, just in front of Saint Mark’s Square, that overlooks the

SE2-Logo2

At the end of next week, I will be at the University of Connecticut School of Business and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center for their Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Conference.

Further information about the conference is available here, a portion of which is reproduced below:

In October 2014, Connecticut joined a growing number of states that empower for-profit corporations to expand their core missions to expressly include human rights, environmental sustainability, and other social objectives. As a new legal class of businesses, these benefit corporations join a growing range of social entrepreneurship and enterprise models that have the potential to have positive social impacts on communities in Connecticut and around the world. Designed to evaluate and enhance this potential, SE2 will feature a critical examination of the various aspects of social entrepreneurship, as well as practical guidance on the challenges and opportunities presented by the newly adopted Connecticut Benefit Corporation Act and other forms of social enterprise.

Presenters at the academic symposium on April 23 are:

  • Mystica Alexander, Bentley University
  • Norman Bishara, University of Michigan
  • Kate Cooney, Yale University
  • Lucien Dhooge, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Gwendolyn Gordon, University of Pennsylvania
  • Gil Lan, Ryerson University
  • Diana Leyden, University of

Recently, I received the following conference announcement via e-mail:

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Understanding the Modern Company

Organised by the Department of Law, Queen Mary University of London,

in cooperation with University College London

Saturday 9 May 2015, 09.00 to 17.00

Centre for Commercial Law Studies

Queen Mary University of London

67-69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields

London WC2A 3JB

From their origin in medieval times to their modern incarnation as transnational bodies that traverse nations, the company remains an important, yet highly misunderstood entity. It is perhaps not surprising then that understanding what a company is and to whom it is accountable remains a persistent and enduring debate across the globe.

Today, the company is viewed in a variety, and often contradictory, ways. Some see it as a public body; others view it as a system of private ordering, while still others see it as a hybrid between these two views. Companies have also been characterized as the property of their shareholders, a network, a team, and even akin to a natural person. Yet the precise nature of the company and its role in society remain a modern mystery.

This conference brings together a wealth of scholars from around the world to explore the