The Corporation at the Intersection of Law and Information
Symposium Theme
Sessions will consider legal frameworks governing protections granted to, and compulsions of, corporate speech and information. This includes insights and theories concerning the role of information in corporate governance, as well as insights and theories about the role of corporate disclosures and expression on society in political governance and democracy. Berle XVI is intended to be interdisciplinary and generative, and will bring together leading scholars working in both public and private law, as well as disciplines such as sociology, history, and communication.
Contributors to the symposium may choose to address the topic from many angles: the application of public law frameworks, such as the First Amendment, to corporate speech; stakeholders’ information rights under state corporate law; securities regulation mandating public disclosures of corporate information; fiduciary obligations of information monitoring, disclosure, and candor, in corporate organization; the role of information in corporate voting and elections; and the effect of changes in information technology to any of the above.
Contributions may consider such questions as: How are the informational needs and rights of shareholders, workers, consumers, and citizens changing, in society and in law? How is artificial intelligence being integrated into corporate governance processes? How has Caremark doctrine evolved to place corporate information and communication at the center of the board’s oversight role, and what are the broader implications of this new board oversight? Is the SEC’s new, more expansive approach to mandatory disclosure justifiable? Does the expanding universe of ESG disclosures—mandatory and voluntary—serve narrow interests of capital markets participants, or broader public interest? Do rigorous new ESG disclosures change corporate governance? Should mandatory ESG disclosures be evaluated under the First Amendment? How have changes in the capital markets, such as the rise of horizontal shareholding, changed the information environment for some categories of investors, and how should the law respond? How does information regulation (disclosure requirements and restrictions) shape shareholder voting, for example in relation to the new universal proxy?
Scholars are invited to employ political economy as well as law-and-economic methods, and to use the symposium as an opportunity to expand their work and their scholarly networks in new directions.
