Thirty Years of Corporate Law: Still Fit for Purpose?

The 2021 conference involved a hybrid offering of online participation (through Zoom) for those who could not attend in person due to COVID restrictions, and in-person attendance for those who can attend (NSW Government health guidelines permitting). The conference was held at the University of Sydney’s historic Camperdown campus, close to the southern edge of Sydney’s CBD and was hosted by the Ross Parsons Centre for Commercial, Corporate and Taxation Law at Sydney Law School.

CONFERENCE THEME: Thirty Years of Corporate Law: Still Fit for Purpose?

The 2021 conference marked the 30th anniversary of the Association. The conference theme invited participants to reflect on the principles of corporate law and how they have developed over the past 30 years. 2021 also marked the 20th anniversary of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the introduction of the national system for regulating corporate law in Australia.

The past 30 years have seen major structural reform in corporate law, both in Australia and New Zealand and across the Asia-Pacific. Multiple jurisdictions have completely rewritten their corporate statutes, including Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, South Africa and the UK. Australia’s corporate law framework retains a large and complex omnibus statute, with the corporate regulator ASIC having a regulatory remit far broader than other corporate and securities regulators around the world. Other jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific have taken different approaches with multiple statutes and regulators.

The conference asked whether the current corporate law framework remains fit for purpose? What have we learnt from the past 3 decades? What has worked, what hasn’t worked? What can we learn from corporate law reforms in other jurisdictions?

Themes included:

• The role and performance of modern corporate and/or securities regulators

• Implications of COVID-19 reforms on corporate law and the law reform process

• Implications of climate change on corporate law and the law reform process

• Corporate criminal liability in light of the ALRC’s 2020 report

• Individual and corporate liability

• Shareholder ‘activism’

• Rethinking enforcement of corporate laws

• Reassessing prior law reforms

• The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) in its historical context

• Rethinking federal corporate regulation in Australia

Conference Highlights

Our keynote speaker was Dr Robert Austin. Dr Austin is a barrister at Level 22 chambers in Sydney. Dr Austin is Challis Lecturer in Corporate Law at The University of Sydney, where he has taught for over 50 years. Dr Austin is a former Head of the Department of Law at The University of Sydney and a former Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, as well as the co-author of several leading texts including Ford, Austin and Ramsay’s Principles of Corporations Law.

There was a plenary panel discussion on the scholarship of former CLTA presidents Professor Peta Spender and Professor Stephen Bottomley.

There was also a plenary panel featuring the life members of the Association, Professors John Farrar, Paul Redmond, Ian Ramsay and Jennifer Hill discussing the past 30 years of corporate law.