History

Why hold the conference?

Company law academics had met at the annual meetings of the Company Law Interest Group of the general law teachers association. But there might be only two or three interest group meetings in the generalist academic conference and attendance was declining. There was a feeling that we needed to complement these meetings with a specialist gathering. Tax teachers had held a conference in 1990 and planned to continue the meetings.

Besides, change was in the air. The Australian Securities Commission had commenced operation on 1 January 1991, replacing the dysfunctional split companies administration through the former National Companies and Securities Commission and the State and Territory commissions. The new Commonwealth corporations legislation enacted in 1989 had failed at the first hurdle when the High Court held that the corporations power in Constitution s 51(xx) did not support a general power of incorporation. However, by the end of 1990 the Commonwealth and States had reached agreement that enabled the former cooperative scheme to be recast with “federalising characteristics”, to appear to all the world as if it were Commonwealth rather than State law. This ersatz national scheme would endure for another decade until the States referred power to enable a truly national scheme based on Commonwealth legislation.

However, in 1991 it seemed revolution enough. The Australian Securities Commission under its vigorous first chairman, Tony Hartnell, had foreshadowed an ambitious enforcement program to clean up after the corporate collapses of the late 1980s. The Commission’s greatly expanded powers and national reach marked a brave new world of corporate regulation. Company law was giving way to corporate law. A new tide was running, and running strongly. It would have its rips and eddies, a time of danger for academics working alone as well as of opportunity and excitement.

So, it seemed time to invite colleagues together for a scholarly discussion on what was important for the corporate law curriculum and the new research agenda. We wanted this to be a conference with the usual academic goals of such gatherings, but we also hoped that it would trigger an academic conversation that would continue down the years. For my part, I had in mind something of the medieval guilds with their functions of mutual support and strengthening of the craft tradition. A company, cum pane: with shared bread we become a collegial group for shared learning. Less ambitious than the old Germanic guilds which sought for their members “material security in this life and salvation in the next”, but ambitious and radical enough for the times.

Then and now: Objectives and philosophy

We had some core ideas for the conference. It is for readers to judge to what extent they have endured, and deserve to endure, in the same or mature form.

First, there was the idea of solidarity, of mutual support in the several aspects of professing company law. The bigger schools, better staffed, might help those working alone, in some cases with the burden of teaching tax as well as company law. Both fields were burgeoning. We sought to achieve that goal through structured opportunities for discussion but especially through informal discussion over coffee, dinner and after sessions. Conversations and friendships begun almost 20 years ago continue.

Second, we wanted to focus upon teaching as well as research. We chose the word ‘Teachers’ for the conference and later the Association. We had the feeling even then that teaching was going to be under pressure from the claims, pressures and delights of research. We wanted to keep teaching on the agenda and did not see it as competing with and inferior to research. When an academic group takes a research focus as one of its objectives, there is an inevitable and legitimate pressure from participants to present their research. We wanted to keep the conversation alive not just about research but also the problems and choices we share in the what and how of curriculum design and teaching. We did not provide in the program for paper presentation except for expositions of the main areas of reform. This was appropriate for the first meeting at a time of major change but not over the long-term. What is constant is the need for balance between teaching and research.

Third, we wanted cost to be no obstacle to attendance. The conference registration fee was deliberately and symbolically set at $20 to signal its accessibility and academic character. That fee distinguished it from the ubiquitous programs then offered by commercial providers at fees of $1,000 per day. We were able to do this in part because the legal publishers supported the conference financially and have done so consistently since. Happily, the Chartered Securities Australia under Dr John Nelson also came in shortly after to provide sustaining support.

Of course, this frugality had its costs. Sydney put on oppressively hot and sticky weather for the conference. Delegates who needed accommodation were offered a (spartan) student room in a UNSW college where air-conditioning was considered an effete indulgence. Some delegates still talk, affectionately, I think, of discomfort not experienced since early childhood.