21st Century Corporate Law: What Is The Outlook For The Next 25 Years?
The UTS Faculty of Law was delighted to host the 2025 annual conference of the Society of Corporate Law Academics, which was held in-person at its Broadway campus.
With 2025 marking the start of the second quarter of the 21st Century, the conference theme was “21st century corporate law: What is the outlook for the next 25 years?”.
The 2025 SCoLA conference was supported by:
THANK YOU TO THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Dame Sarah Worthington DBE KC(Hon) is a Professor of Law at the London School of Economics (LSE) Law School, a barrister and Bencher of Middle Temple, and, prior to returning to the LSE in 2022, was the Downing Professor of the Laws of England, Cambridge, and inaugural Director of the Cambridge Private Law Centre.
She is a specialist in corporate law and commercial equity, with publications which include co-authorship of Gower’s Principles of Modern Company Law, Palmer’s Company Law and Sealy and Worthington’s Text, Cases and Materials in Company Law.
Justice Ashley Black
Justice Black has been a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales since 4 July 2011. He was previously a dispute resolution partner at Mallesons Stephen Jaques (now King & Wood Mallesons) where he practised primarily in commercial litigation and financial services regulation.
He was admitted as a solicitor in 1987 and was a Judge's Associate in the Federal Court of Australia in 1988. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from the University of Sydney.
He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney Law School and is joint author of Securities and Financial Services Law, 10th ed, 2021 and Austin & Black's Annotations to the Corporations Act.
ABSTRACTS SUBMISSIONS
We had some lively discussions on the outlook for corporate law over the next 25 years at SCoLA 2025.
The committee invited the submission of proposals for papers that critically reflected on various aspects of the conference theme, including:
Embracing emerging technologies in the management and governance of corporate activity
Promoting long-term horizons including environmental and social sustainability
Protecting the rights of increasingly heterogenous investor-types
Facilitating informed participation in meetings and other corporate proceedings
Balancing the interests of stakeholders both locally and globally
Encouraging informed risk-taking in corporate activity and entrepreneurship
Promoting transparency and accountability in corporate decision-making
Safeguarding the integrity of financial markets in a data-driven world
Ensuring that corporate wrongdoers are held to account
Determining challenging questions such as the best interests of a corporation and/or the proper purposes for the exercise of corporate authority
Innovations in enforcing compliance with corporate regulations
Intersections with insolvency.
Congratulations to the 2025 SCoLA Conference prize winners!
BEST CONFERENCE PAPER PRIZE
Winner: Olivia Dixon (The University of Sydney), “End of the line for the facilitation payment defence to foreign bribery”
Commendation: Paulina Fishman (Deakin University), “Small business restructuring and secured creditors”
STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE
First Prize: Patrick Hart – “Costs and funding challenges in climate class actions: An argument for a statutory fund” (Sydney LLM paper taught by Jason Betts)
Second Prize: Nicola Jerkovic “Sustainability disclosures in the Australian fossil fuel industry: Net zero targets before and after recommendations from the high-level expert group on net zero emission commitments” (Swinburne paper taught by Natania Locke)
Third Prize: Eduardo Sanchez Gonzalez (Newcastle paper taught by Tim Connor)