Climate Democracy: Why Can’t Shareholders Drive Corporate Climate Action?

Join us as Professor Dan W. Puchniak presents groundbreaking research revealing how outdated “acting in concert” rules block institutional investors from exercising their shareholder voting rights on climate change. Despite controlling trillions in assets, these shareholders are legally prevented from replacing boards that resist climate initiatives—even when they collectively hold a majority stake.

Amid intensifying global turbulence over ESG and mounting climate risks, dismantling outdated legal barriers to shareholder-driven corporate reform has never been more vital.

This seminar reveals the first comparative global analysis of these overlooked legal barriers and how they effectively shield uncooperative boards from shareholder accountability. Professor Puchniak will present a practical framework for reform—one that balances effective markets with the urgent imperative for corporate climate action.

Essential for lawyers, legal scholars, investors, climate advocates, and corporate governance experts.

The full article is available here:

Dan W. Puchniak & Umakanth Varottil, Climate-Related Shareholder Activism as Corporate Democracy: A Call to Reform “Acting in Concert” Rules, 50 J. Corp. L. 617 (2025), https://jcl.law.uiowa.edu/articles/2025/03/climate-related-shareholder-activism-corporate-democracy-call-reform-acting

Speaker: Dan W. Puchniak

Chair: Professor Eva Micheler

Dan W. Puchniak is a Professor in the Yong Pung How School of Law (YPHSL) at Singapore Management University, the Director of the YPHSL Centre for Commercial Law in Asia, a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), and the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Forum on Corporate Climate Governance. Dan is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of comparative corporate law and governance, with a focus on Asia.

He has received numerous domestic and international awards for his academic research and teaching – most recently the 2023 ECGI Cleary Gottlieb Law Prize. Dan has held visiting positions at leading law schools around the world and his research has been profiled in The Economist, The Japan Times, and The Business Times.

He has advised international organizations on the development of corporate law in Asia, served as an expert in high stakes complex corporate law disputes in Asia, and his research has been cited several times by Singapore’s apex court. Prior to entering academia, Dan worked as a corporate commercial litigator at one of Canada’s leading law firms.

This seminar will be open to participants on a first-come, first-served basis.