Ryan Abbott (University of Surrey) gave a lecture entitled 'The Principle of AI Legal Neutrality' on 25 February 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. AI and people do not compete on a level-playing field. From a safety perspective, AI may be the best choice for driving a vehicle, but laws often prohibit driverless vehicles. At the same time, a person may be better at providing customer service, but a business may automate because it saves on taxes. AI may be better at helping companies to innovate, but using AI may keep these companies from obtaining intellectual property rights. In The Reasonable Robot, Ryan Abbott argues that the law should not discriminate between people and AI when they are performing the same tasks, a legal standard that will ultimately improve human wellbeing. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Jon Lukomnik (Sinclair Capital & IRRC Institute) gave a lecture entitled 'Blackrock's Environmental Activism: The Third Stage of Corporate Governance' on 4 February 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Dr Suren Gomtsian (University of Leeds) gave a lecture entitled 'Shareholder Engagement by Large Institutional Investors' on 28 January 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Howell E. Jackson (Harvard Law School) gave a lecture entitled ""Nobody is Proud of Soft Dollars": A Critical Review of Excess Brokerage Commissions in the United States and the Significance of Recent MiFID II Reforms in the European Union" on 21 October 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Andrew Keay & Professor Joan Loughrey (University of Leeds, UK) gave a lecture entitled "Should Judges Review Directors’ Business Judgment(s)?" on 21 February 2019 at the Faculty of Law as guests of 3CL. Directors are rarely held legally accountable for decisions that have poor outcomes. A key reason is that courts have asserted that the exercise of director’s business judgment should be immune from judicial review. Thus classifying a decision as a business judgment provides directors with a powerful shield from accountability. Yet the meaning and boundaries of the concept of business judgment and the consequences of review/non-review have received little attention. In their seminar, Professors Keay and Loughrey will address this gap by: (1) establishing what is meant by business judgment, (2) identifying how the courts apply this concept, and (3) assessing to what extent directors’ decisions in England and Wales should be subject to review by the courts. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Susan Watson (University of Auckland, New Zealand) gave a lecture entitled "An Eversion in Thinking: The Company as a Persona Ficta" on 26 February 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. The argument that forms the basis of this seminar is that the modern company is a legal entity that is a persona ficta; a juridical person separate from all natural persons. Professor Watson will argue that being a persona ficta separate from all natural persons enables the company to capture forms of value derived from the people who work for the organisation, or who transact with the company. The company converts that value to forms of capital that it combines to generate further value. That lock in of capital over time has made size, scope and scale possible within the corporate form. That value extends beyond financial and other forms of capital to organisational systems. The accounting and later legal separation of the fund as a legal entity not just from shareholders but from all the people who are part of the organisation made partitioning of that value in the persona ficta possible. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Samuel Buell (Duke University, USA) gave a lecture entitled "The Global Expansion of Corporate Criminal Liability: Effective Enforcement Policy Across Legal Systems" on 12 February 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. The United States model of corporate crime control, developed over the last two decades, couples an extremely broad rule of corporate criminal liability with a practice of reducing sanctions, and often withholding conviction, for firms that assist in public enforcement by detecting, reporting, and helping prove criminal violations. This model has recently attracted more interest among law reformers in overseas nations, who have sought to increase the frequency and size of their own enforcement actions by adopting features of the U.S. approach. By focusing almost entirely on the law of corporate criminal liability and the process of criminal settlement, the international discussion of corporate criminal enforcement law and policy, as well as the literature on corporate crime, have missed how the U.S. model depends on what we term background laws. These are rules such as self-incrimination rights, legal privileges, and data privacy regimes that control the relative powers of governments and corporations to collect and use evidence of business crime. This Article exposes that omission, explains how background laws operate and differ in the U.S. and overseas, and advises law reformers on how to shape corporate enforcement policy in light of domestic law’s allocation of investigative powers between public and private spheres. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Dr Alexander Schall of Leuphana Law School, Germany gave a lecture entitled "The Principle of Unjust Enrichment – A Comparative Perspective" on 29 Januyary 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL the Cambridge Private Law Centre. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/ and the Private Law Centre website: http://www.privatelaw.law.cam.ac.uk/

Jennifer Hill (Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Sydney Law School) gave a lecture entitled "Liability for Seriously Flawed Corporate Cultures" on 22 November 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. For more information on past events including recordings, please refer to the Centre activities page. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Dr Jay Cullen (University of Sheffield) gave a lecture entitled "The Case for Abolishing Deposit Insurance Limits" on 13 November 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Dr Andreas Kokkinis of the University of Warwick gave a lecture entitled "Revisiting the Case for Employee Participation in Corporate Governance" on 30 November 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. In this seminar, Dr Kokkinis revisits the theory of firm ownership to examine the potential economic benefits of employee participation in corporate governance. Contrary to the standard corporate contractarian claim that employee participation is inefficient, because it does not arise frequently as a result of market forces, he demonstrates that the supposed superiority of the current Anglo-American system cannot be logically deduced. Some level of employee participation can be optimal for some firms, and available evidence indicates that participation brings advantages in terms of productivity. To understand the nature of these advantages and the best way to design a legal framework for participation, Dr Kokkinis conducts a case study of the German system of codetermination. Taking into account the peculiarities of the UK economy and corporate governance system, he argues that employee board representation is likely to bring positive economic outcomes. This, however, presupposes broad acceptance of participation by business managers and institutional investors, as well as employees. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

David Kershaw (Professor of Law at the LSE) gave a lecture entitled "The Foundations of Anglo-American Corporate Fiduciary Law: Connected Assets and the Idea of Property" on 23 October 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. David Kershaw is the author of 'The Foundations of Anglo-American Corporate Fiduciary Law' (CUP, 2018), 'Principles of Takeover Regulation' (OUP, 2016), and 'Company Law in Context: Text and Materials', 2nd ed. (OUP, 2012). Prior to his academic career, he qualified as a Solicitor at Herbert Smith, London and practised corporate law in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Shearman & Sterling in New York and London. In this seminar, Professor Kershaw will address one of the key themes of his most recent book 'The Foundations of Anglo-American Corporate Fiduciary Law', published in August of this year. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Marc Moore, Senior Lecturer at University College London, gave a lecture entitled "Beyond Private Ordering: Rethinking Corporate Governance as a Subject of Legal Enquiry" on Tuesday, 28th February 2012 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. Marc's interests are in company law, corporate governance and capital markets, especially theory of the firm and the legitimacy of managerial decision-making power in public companies. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at: http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Steven Schwarcz (Stanley A. Star Professor of Law & Business, Duke University) gave a lecture entitled "Central Clearing of Financial Contracts" on 13 March 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Dr Michael Galanis (Senior Lecturer in Company Law, University of Manchester) gave a lecture entitled "Saving the World with or From Corporate Law: A Silent Death for the Corporation?" on 20 February 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. For more information on past events including recordings, please refer to the Centre activities page. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Robert Hingley (Senior Adviser, Ondra; Member and Former Director-General, Takeover Panel) gave a lecture entitled "The Takeover Code in its Wider Regulatory and Political Context" on 13 February 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. Robert Hingley is currently a partner at the independent advisory firm Ondra, and a member of the Code Committee of the UK Takeover Panel. He has formerly served as Director-General of the Takeover Panel, and is also chairman of the Cambridge MCL Practitioners’ Advisory Board. Hingley started his career in investment banking with Schroders in the mid-1980s, spending 18 years there and with Citigroup in roles including head of the global financial institutions group and head of German investment banking. In 2005 he joined Lexicon Partners as vice chairman. In 2010 he joined Lazard as a managing director in its financial advisory business, and in 2012 became director of investment affairs at the Association of British Insurers. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Chris Hale (Senior Partner, Travers Smith) gave a lecture entitled "Private Equity: the Challenges of Success" on 7 February 2018 at the Faculty of Law as a distinguished guest of 3CL. Chris Hale is the Senior Partner of Travers Smith, and one of the world’s leading lawyers in private equity. He specialises in UK and international M&A and buy-out work, and founded Travers Smith’s Private Equity Group in 1996. Chris acts for institutional investors and management teams on investments and divestments, as well as private equity-backed and large private companies on M&A and other corporate matters. He lectures and contributes to journals regularly, and is the author of Private Equity: A Transactional Analysis, 3rd ed. (2015, Globe Law and Business). For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Deirdre Ahern of Trinity College Dublin gave a lecture entitled "Conceptualising Overreach in the English Corporate Opportunities Doctrine" on 7 November 2017 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. For more information on past events including recordings, please refer to the Centre activities page. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Richard A. Booth (Martin G. McGuinn Professor of Business Law, Villanova University) gave a lecture entitled "The Real Problem with Appraisal Arbitrage" on 2 May 2017 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Andrew Johnston of the University of Sheffield gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "The Rise and Fall of the Enterprise: How the Law Forgot about Management" on 7 March 2017 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of 3CL (The Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law). 3CL Seminars are kindly supported by Travers Smith. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/