Cynthia A. Williams

Climate Change, West Virginia v. EPA, and the SEC’s Distinctive Statutory Mandate

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In March 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would require publicly traded companies to provide investors with various climate-related disclosures (the Proposal).[1]The rule has generated extensive debate and the SEC has received more than 4,000 substantive comment letters and more than 10,000 form letters to date. Commenters have raised a variety of concerns about the Proposal, including the extent to which the SEC has the authority to mandate climate-related disclosure. Since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, some commentators have also asserted that the Proposal runs afoul … Read more

The Social Reform of Banking: Innovating for Sustainable Financial Services

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The following post comes to us from John M. Conley, William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Cynthia A. Williams, Osler Chair in Business Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. It is based on their recent paper, “The Social Reform of Banking,” which was published in the Journal of Corporation Law and is available here.

The financial crisis of 2008 led to global demands for reforms that would put the financial services industry on a more sustainable ethical, economic, and legal footing. Thus far, the response to … Read more