Lecture series: Business law & sustainability

Wednesday 19 April 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

In this lecture, dr. Tom Vos (UAntwerp) will first give an overview of the current EU legal framework regarding sustainable corporate governance and sustainable finance, and will provide a theoretical framework to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages from the EU initiatives. 

Afterwards, David Ballegeer (partner, Linklaters) and Pauline Kustermans (managing associate, Linklaters) will reply to the lecture from a more practical perspective, focusing on the application of the Corporate Sustainability Directive, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and green and sustainability-linked bonds.

Tuesday 25 April 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

In the first part of the lecture, prof. Anne Van de Vijver (UAntwerp) will discuss how aggressive corporate tax lobbying undermines the legitimacy of tax legislation and negatively impacts trust in the tax system. Building on Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory, this lecture suggests the existence of a moral duty that requires corporations and their leaders to be transparent about their political activities and to engage with their stakeholders. Based on this new understanding, tools for enhanced stakeholder engagement are discussed.

In the second part of the lecture, prof. Tarcísio Diniz Magalhães (UAntwerp) will discuss how corporations effectively extract windfalls from current and future taxpayer when they externalize environmental and social costs. If the business is carried out in multiple jurisdictions, the windfall is extracted from societies that differ from those where most corporate income taxes are paid. This lecture discusses how economic tools that measure negative externalities across global supply chains could be used to tax away those windfalls where they arise.

Wednesday 3 May 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Whether competition law is a tool or an obstacle for a more sustainable society is a topic that has led to heated discussions in recent years. While competition generally encourages businesses to be efficient and innovative, in some instances competition may also be wasteful of natural resources. Some authors, businesses and even some competition authorities argue that certain rules of competition law should therefore be relaxed, in particular for agreements between competitors that pursue sustainability objectives. This lecture describes the current legal situation in this respect, including in light of recent case law, recent legislative initiatives and the ongoing review of the European Commission’s Guidelines on Horizontal Cooperation Agreements.

Discussant : MariaDreher-Lorje (Freshfields)

Wednesday 10 May 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

In this lecture, prof. Wouter Verheyen (University of Antwerp) and Marta Kolacz (Rouen University) will evaluate the sustainability of the B2C delivery sector and possible tools to enhance such sustainability. Last mile deliveries have exploded in recent years. With this, the delivery sector has transformed into an important life line for retailers and consumers. Simultaneously, external effects of this sector have significantly increased, including social dumping, urban sprawl and congestion. However, regulating this sector is an important challenge, taking into account the fact that the three types of sustainability targets (economic, ecologic and social) seem to be mutually exclusive in this field. In this session we investigate whether this tension can be eliminated and a holistic model for sustainable deliveries (in its three meanings) is possible.

Wednesday 24 May 2023, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Intellectual Property (IP) is considered a vital instrument in many sectors for stimulating innovation and creativity. In exploring a more sustainable approach towards IP, it is essential to integrate sustainability and the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) in a holistic manner throughout the IP lifecycle and through all layers of society, including those markets which do not have easy access to the most needed technologies and resources. To achieve these goals, policies and procedures need to be adopted by IP offices (public governance), but also private IP strategies and IP management can contribute to achieving these sustainability goals (private governance). This means considering ecological and community priorities at all stages of the IP lifecycle: R&D for identifying and creating new inventions, streamlining application procedures, portfolio management, commercialization and stimulation of the use and/or transfer of exclusive rights and their dissemination via impact licensing principles. 

Esther van Zimmeren (UAntwerp) will start by explaining the relevance of such initiatives and will provide examples of more sustainable public and private IP governance initiatives followed by Bruno Vandermeulen (Impact Licensing Initiative), who will clarify how such private initiatives can be set up using the example of an ongoing project regarding “passive cold chain vaccine carriers”.