CCLI

Castle Debate: Legal Liability for Climate Change
2017-02-01 | London, London, United Kingdom
As business steels itself to deal with seismic changes in the world’s climate, what is legally expected of directors is becoming more stringent. The Paris Climate talks in December 2015 confirmed what we already knew – that more serious action is required from the corporate world in future. Business leaders must understand how to respond to this cultural, regulatory and economic shift – which means legal and financial experts must collaborate to elucidate the law and give the right information to business leaders.

Value Creation in a Sustainable Manner
2017-01-12 | Melbourne, Australia
Panel featuring Prof Mervyn King SC and CCLI’s Australian convenor, Sarah Barker (Minter Ellison), hosted by CPA Australia and Melbourne Law School’s Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law (CREEL) and Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation (CCLSR). This event explored the changing role of the corporation and how this may play out in complex regulatory and legal environments. The panel discussions revolved around the potential effects of local and international developments in climate change litigation. Some of questions that being addressed included whether or not and how increased shareholder activism will force corporate decision-makers to consider and manage climate change risks, and if this will drive a longer term perspective and preserve corporate value, among others.

Climate Risk and the Law Breakfast Seminar
2017-01-03 | London, London, United Kingdom
CCLI through ClientEarth, together with IIGCC, PRI, CDP, Influence Map and Bentham Europe, co-organised a breakfast seminar to explore the liability risks that climate change poses to companies, and what the law can do to help you to avoid risks and recover losses.
Recent high profile corporate scandals involving VW, as well as the collapse of the US coal sector, demonstrate that there are serious risks associated with the shift to a lower carbon economy. In both these cases, significant shareholder value was destroyed by either fraudulent or imprudent managerial practices. In the coming transition, additional regulatory pressure together with rapid technological change is guaranteed to create both winners and losers.
This event considered both how investors can seek to avoid backing losers, and how they can recover losses which may occur. In light of the recent release of the recommendations report of the FSB’s task force on climate-related financial disclosures, the event provided a forum to discuss how investors can confidently act on the additional information expected to become available, avoid systemic risk, and be confident active stewards of the companies they own.

Climate Change Risk and Corporate Governance Directors' Duties and Liability Exposures in a post-Paris World
2016-08-01 | Melbourne, Australia
Climate change presents material – if not unparalleled – economic risks and opportunities. These emerging exposures have implications for corporate governance in climate-risk exposed industries (from financial services to mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and beyond), investors (banks, asset owners and managers) and for the insurance sector (professional indemnity and directors’ and officers’ insurance).
Despite these risks, there remains little in-depth analysis of how prevailing corporate governance laws and fiduciary duties facilitate – or constrain – the actions of company directors and trustees confronted with complex climate change challenges.
The symposium considered international developments in the law and liability for climate change damages, with a practical, inter-disciplinary perspectives provided by leading directors, economists, investors and insurance-sector executives.

International Symposium on Directors' Liability for Climate Change Damages
2016-06-15 | University of Oxford
The first of three high-level international symposia on the legal exposures of company directors for climate change damages. The first symposium was held at Lady Margaret Hall, a college within the University of Oxford, on the 8th June 2016. Each symposium facilitated a cross-institutional and cross-jurisdictional exchange of legal thought leadership on director liability risks relevant to plaintiff and defence lawyers, regulators, investors, accountants, and insurers.
