According to Samuel Stoljar, the renowned legal historian and theorist, ‘common law corporations’ have existed in a variety of forms since at least the 12th century in England.

Well before chartered corporations and the advent of the joint stock company, common law corporations enjoyed immortality, perpetual succession, capacity to sue and be sued and agility in responding to their legal, commercial and social environments. Their demonstrated capacities to evolve remain a striking feature of the modern corporate landscape and, as they have always done, continue to present governance and regulatory challenges. These include the increasing trend towards complex corporate groups, multinational networks and supply chains, interplay between and interchange of corporate and public entities, and integration of automated and algorithmic processes into core corporate business, including governance. These changes have been matched by a surge of regulatory and theoretical challenges to ‘shareholder primacy’, which seek to reposition corporations as citizens subject to public obligations and answerable to the communities in which they operate.

One ongoing transformation is the ever-increasing interconnection between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and corporations. This includes through the rise of Indigenous business - which brings in A$16 billion per year in revenue ¹ – as well as broader corporate engagement with Indigenous peoples ². This in turn has resulted in a greater appreciation of the value of Indigenous knowledges to contemporary corporate law and governance ³.

The 2026 SCoLA conference takes the opportunity to consider these and related issues, bringing together leading Australian, New Zealand and international corporate law scholars and practitioners together for three days of debate, discussion and discovery. Headlined by luminaries from the bench, academy and broader legal and business communities, the conference promises to continue SCoLA’s proud history of offering an outstanding bridge between scholarship, practice and industry, and giving voice to the insights of corporate law scholars in Australia, New-Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.

The chief convenor of the conference, Dr Elise Bant, is Professor of Private Law and Commercial Regulation at the University of Western Australia. Her work on corporate responsibility has attracted world-wide attention. She welcomes the opportunity to discuss sponsorship opportunities associated with the conference.