Financing Sustainable Entrepreneurship

By Paul P. Momtaz and Sasan Mansouri January 13, 2022 by renholding

At least since BlackRock boss Larry Fink’s annual letter to CEOs in 2019, investing in ESG assets has become a major topic among both retail and institutional investors. In a new article, we address the question of how economically attractive …

Corporate Governance Reform and the Sustainability Imperative

By Christopher M. Bruner November 1, 2021 by renholding

In recent years, interest in alternatives to shareholder-centric corporate governance has increased significantly. It has been driven by a growing sustainability imperative – widespread recognition that business as usual, despite the short-term returns generated, could undermine social and economic stability …

Comparative Corporate Governance

By Afra Afsharipour and Martin Gelter August 16, 2021 by renholding

With the increasing internationalization of law and legal scholarship, comparative corporate governance has seen a burgeoning volume of research from a practical, theoretical, and empirical perspective. Practically speaking, both internationally and within individual countries, most corporate governance research deals with …

Debevoise & Plimpton Discusses European Commission’s Views on Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation

By Patricia Volhard, Jin-Hyuk Jang, John Young and Eric Olmesdahl August 6, 2021 by renholding

The European Commission (the “Commission”) recently issued long-awaited answers to questions raised by the European Supervisory Authorities earlier this year on the Regulation on Sustainability-related Disclosures in the Financial Sector (“SFDR”). This Update covers answers to questions that relate to …

SEC Chair Calls for Transparency on What Funds Mean by Sustainability and Diversity

By Gary Gensler July 8, 2021 by renholding

Thank you for the kind introduction. I enjoyed chatting with you a couple of weeks ago, Ed, and it’s good to meet with the whole committee for the first time.

I’m grateful for your time and willingness to give us

…

ESG and the Pricing of IPOs: Does Sustainability Matter?

By Alessandro Fenili and Carlo Raimondo June 18, 2021 by renholding

In recent years, investors and others in the financial community have devoted increasing attention to the role of sustainability in financial markets and the economy at large. Sustainability is now seen as an alternative form of risk management, a way …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses EC’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive

By Maurits Dolmans, Geraldine Bourguignon, Clara Cibrario Assereto and Toon Dictus June 2, 2021 by renholding

On April 21, 2021, the European Commission published an ambitious new package of “sustainable finance” regulation proposals. By far the most awaited element of this release concerned the Commission’s proposal for the review of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (“NFRD…

Corporate Purpose and Acquisitions

By Claudine Madras Gartenberg and Shun Yiu May 24, 2021 by renholding

Acquisitions are at the core of corporate strategy, enabling companies to expand and reposition themselves in the market. In 2019 alone, they accounted for nearly $3.7 trillion of economic activity. Yet acquirers famously struggle to realize value from these transactions. …

A Call for Reflection on Sustainable Corporate Governance

By Alex Edmans, Luca Enriques, Jesse Fried, Mark J. Roe and Steen Thomsen April 29, 2021 by renholding

Together with other European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) research members, we have recently issued a Call for Reflection on Sustainable Corporate Governance to express our concerns over the risk that new legislation on EU companies’ governance is adopted without properly …

Gibson Dunn Discusses Mandatory Corporate Human Rights Due Diligence

By Susy Bullock, Pierre-Emmanuel Fender, Perlette Jura, Oliver Welch and Finn Zeidler March 24, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

In this two-part alert, we examine key global legislative developments and proposals in the bourgeoning field of mandatory corporate human rights due diligence. In Part One (available here), we looked at very recent steps taken by the institutions of …

The Agency Costs of Sustainable Capitalism

By Anna Christie March 12, 2021 by renholding

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2020, Larry Fink – the chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock – wore a climate change-themed scarf. It featured the “warming stripes” visual, where the color …

The Duty of Care for Board Members Should Include Competence in ESG

By Tensie Whelan February 18, 2021 by renholding

It is becoming clearer to investors and corporate managers that material environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues need to be managed as part of an organization’s business strategy. Climate change, racism, economic inequality, water scarcity, cybersecurity threats – these …

Gibson Dunn Discusses EU Developments in Corporate Human Rights Due Diligence

By Susy Bullock, Allan Neil and Alexa Romanelli February 15, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

The concept of mandatory corporate human rights due diligence is gaining momentum, both within Europe and on the international stage

In this two-part alert, we examine key global legislative developments and proposals on this important topic. In Part One, we …

Lessons from India’s Struggles with Corporate Purpose

By Afra Afsharipour February 4, 2021 by renholding

The escalating debate over corporate purpose is not confined to developed economies in the West. Rapidly developing economies in nations like India are similarly grappling with how to define and develop a legal framework around corporate purpose. Corporate social responsibility …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses New EU ESG Disclosure Obligations for Financial Services Firms

By Géraldine Bourguignon, Helena Grannis, Caroline Petruzzi McHale, Ferdisha Snagg and Clara Cibrario Assereto January 19, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

Over a year ago, on December 29, 2019, Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability-related disclosures for the financial services sector (the “Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation”, or “SFDR”) entered into force. Just a few months remain before key …

Do Corporate Sustainability and Sustainable Finance Generate Better Financial Performance?

By Ulrich Atz, Tracy Van Holt and Zongyuan (Zoe) Liu December 15, 2020 by renholding

Sustainability in business and environmental, social, or governance (ESG) factors in finance have entered the mainstream. In 2020, the CEO of Blackrock wrote: “Our investment conviction is that sustainability and climate integrated portfolios can provide better risk-adjusted returns to investors.”…

Gibson Dunn Discusses the EU Sustainable Finance Framework for Private Fund Managers

By Michelle Kirschner, Chris Hickey and Martin Coombes November 10, 2020 by Nisha Chandra

The European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan [1] (the “Action Plan”) proposed a package of measures including, amongst other initiatives, a regulation imposing sustainability-related disclosures on financial market participants (“SFDR”[2]) and a regulation to …

A Critique of the Sustainable Corporate Governance Report from the European Commission

By Mark Roe, Holger Spamann, Jesse Fried and Charles Wang November 9, 2020 by renholding

In July 2020, the European Commission published the “Study on directors’ duties and sustainable corporate governance” by EY. The report purports to find evidence of debilitating short-termism in EU corporate governance and recommends many changes to support sustainable …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses ESG Regulatory Developments

By Chris Macbeth, Géraldine Bourguignon, Caroline Petruzzi McHale, George Taylor and Clara Cibrario Assereto November 4, 2020 by snehapandya

The last few years have seen a marked worldwide expansion in “ESG”-labelled investment products, bringing sustainable finance into the spotlight as a clear financial industry megatrend. By 2018, investment in sustainable assets in five of the world’s major markets (Europe, …

Skadden Discusses Sustainability-Linked Loans and COVID-19

By Seth E. Jacobson and Kristoffer A. Gredsted November 2, 2020 by snehapandya

Pre-COVID-19, pressure from investors, stakeholders and regulators helped jump-start green financing. The onset of the pandemic brought a temporary chilling effect to the global economy, but because sustainability-linked loans (SLLs) were developed to fill a critical gap in financial markets, …

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