The Corporate Chameleon: Transformations and Trends in Corporate Law

The University of Western Australia Law School was delighted to host the 2026 annual conference of the Society of Corporate Law Academics, which was held in-person on its Crawley campus.

Well before chartered corporations and the advent of the joint stock company, common law corporations enjoyed immortality, perpetual succession, the capacity to sue and be sued, and agility in responding to their legal, commercial and social environments. Corporations’ demonstrated capacities to evolve remain a striking feature of the modern landscape, including in a growing appreciation of the value of Indigenous knowledges to contemporary corporate law and governance.

The 2026 SCoLA conference took the opportunity to consider these and related issues through the theme of ‘The Corporate Chameleon’, bringing together leading Australasian and international corporate law scholars and practitioners for three days of debate, discussion and discovery.

The 2026 SCoLA conference was supported by:

The Corporate Chameleon: Transformations and Trends in Corporate Law

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 took 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 continued 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.

[1] Michelle Evans, Cain Polidano, ‘Indigenous businesses are worth billions but we don’t know enough about them’ The Conversation (17 April 2024).
[2] The Business Council of Australia estimates that 96% of members surveyed have Indigenous engagement plan or strategy in place. Business Council of Australia, Indigenous Good Practice Guide (2023) 5.
[3] See, for example, Australian Institute of Company Directors, ‘Why merging First Nations and Corporate Governance is a win for us all’, (1 August 2024)

KEYNOTE & PLENARY SPEAKERS

The Hon. Chief Justice Peter Damien Quinlan The Supreme Court of Western Australia	Professor Joshua Getzler The University of Oxford	The Hon. Justice Jenni Hill The Supreme Court of Western Australia
Ass. Professor Fiona McGaughey UWA Law School	Ms Rebecca Faugno UWA Law School	Mr Tyson McEwan UWA Law School
Ms Katja Gvozdenovic Kaala Barnan	Ms Aurora Milroy National Native Title Council	The Hon. Justice Katrina Banks-Smith Federal Court of Australia
Professor Christian Witting National University of Singapore	Professor Jeannie Marie Paterson University of Melbourne Law School	Professor Lusina Ho Hong Kong University Law School
The Hon. Justice Darren Jackson Federal Court of Australia	Dr Antonio Buti Attorney General + Minister	Professor Elise Bant UWA Law School

PRACTITIONERS’ STREAM PLENARY SPEAKERS

Her Honour Judge Tania Jeyamohan District Court of Western Australia	Emerita Professor Pamela Hanrahan MAICD Johnson Winter Slattery	Ms Irene Kuo Fluor Australia
Ms Antonella Pacitti King & Wood Mallesons	Professor Sharon Mascher UWA Law School	Mr Joe Longo<br>ASIC Chair
Ms Catherine Pedler A&O Shearman	Mr Jeremy Birch Fourth Floor Chambers	The Hon. Justice Larissa Strk Supreme Court of Western Australia
Mr Paul D Evans HFW

ABSTRACTS SUBMISSIONS

The committee invites the submission of abstracts for consideration for the parallel sessions, which critically reflect on various aspects of the conference theme, including:

• Theories of the corporate person;

• Corporations, partnerships and other business structures;

• Trends in corporate liability mechanisms, such as FAR, BEAR, failure to prevent, and outcomes-based regulation;

• Conceptions and regulation of corporate culture;

• Evolutions and revolutions in directors’ and corporate duties;

• Mergers and Acquisitions;

• Corporate Groups and Restructuring;

• Corporate Insolvency;

• Corporate deterrence, penalty, and rehabilitation; and

• Other topics of particular interest to practitioners.

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CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2026 SCOLA CONFERENCE PRIZE WINNERS!  

BEST CONFERENCE PAPER PRIZE

• WINNER: Samantha Tang (NUS)

• HIGHLY COMMENDED:

  • Alan Koh (Nanyang Business School)

  • Isa Alade (University of Canterbury)

STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE

• FIRST PRIZE: Matthew Poli, “Cleaning up Environmental Misrepresentation: Attributing a state of mind to corporations that engage in greenwashing” (UWA, Rebecca Faugno)

• SECOND PRIZE: Ryan Vowles, “‘Best Interests’ versus ‘Best Financial Interests’ - the 2021 amendment to s 52(2) of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (Cth)” (University of Newcastle, Tim Connors)

• THIRD PRIZE: Aaron Whittenbury, “The ‘Creditor Interests’ Duty: Timing uncertainty in Australian Corporate Law after Sequana” (Bond University, Ian Stevens)