Corporate Law and Corporate Governance: Stocktaking on Compliance and Enforcement
Hosted by the School of Law, Deakin University at Deakin’s Melbourne campus at Toorak.
Approximately 80 delegates from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa attended the Conference. In addition, about 15 practitioners and people from the Austrian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) attended the Panel Discussion held on the Monday afternoon.
After the Conference was opened by Prof Sally Walker, Vice-Chancellor Deakin University, Professor Klaus Hopt, Director, Max-Planck-Institut fur Auslandisches und internationales Privatrecht, Hamburg delivered his Keynote Address on the topic “Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Takeover Law in the European Union- Stocktaking, Reform Problems and Perspectives”. The second Keynote Address was delivered by Mr Nigel Morris, Director, Takeover Panel, on Tuesday morning on the topic “Recent developments in takeovers regulation”.
A highlight of the Conference was the Panel Discussion on Monday afternoon where the Regulators commented on the Conference theme: “Corporate Law and Corporate Governance: Stocktaking on Compliance and Enforcement“. The Panel Discussion was Chaired by Professor Paul Redmond and the following persons acted as Panel Members: Mr Jeremy Cooper, Deputy Chair, ASIC; Mr Eric Mayne, Chief Supervising Officer, ASX; Ms Louise Sylvan, Deputy Chair, ACCC; and Dr Christine Parker, University of Melbourne. Unfortunately Ms Alison Lansley, Mallesons, had to withdraw as Panel Member because of illness.
Approximately 36 individuals delivered papers at the Parallel Sessions. These Sessions were Chaired by members of the 2007 CLTA Executive. The papers covered almost every aspect of the conference theme, but there were also some interesting and stimulated papers dealing with corporate law, corporate governance and insolvency law more generally.
The Annual Dinner (sponsored by CCH) was held on Monday afternoon in the Rialto South Tower (FortyOne, 525 Collins St, Melbourne). It was a pleasant evening where corporate law colleagues and friends had the opportunity to discuss the academic issues of the day in a relaxed atmosphere. At the Dinner the honour of becoming a Life-long Member of the CLTA was bestowed on Professor Paul Redmond by the 2006 National President of the CLTA, Associate Professor Chris Symes. Professor Redmond is only the second person who received this honour after Professor Harold Ford.
The Best Paper Prize (sponsored by the Chartered Secretaries Australia (CSA)) was awarded to Michelle Welsh (Monash University) with a paper entitled “Contraventions of the Continuous Disclosure Provisions: Civil or Administrative Penalties”. The second prize went to Nance Frawley (Monash University) and the third prize to Neels Kilian (Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa). The 2nd and 3rd prizes were sponsored by Oxford University Press.
Apart from our major sponsors (Chartered Secretaries Australia (CSA), CCH and Thomson), I would also like to thank LexisNexis for their sponsorship and display.
I would like to extend a special word of thanks to Koula Antoniou from Deakin University for taking care so meticulously of all the administrative arrangements. Without her assistance this Conference would not have been possible or at least it would not have run so smoothly! I would also like to thank our Web Administrator, Connie Cook (Deakin University) for her patience and doing such a great job on the CLTA Website generally, but in particular the 2007 CLTA Conference site.
Professor Jean J. du Plessis
Conference organiser