The European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) held its Annual Members’ Meeting in Berlin on 3 and 4 May 2018, bringing together international academics and practitioners in the field of corporate governance for a programme that included a panel, a general assembly, an annual lecture and an awards ceremony, all hosted by the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT).
The panel on Common Ownership: Antitrust Meets Corporate Governance, moderated by Prof. Marco Becht, ECGI Executive Director, discussed the challenges faced by asset managers holding significant stakes in multiple companies in the same industry. The conclusions highlighted the necessity of an increased stewardship engagement that does not impair product market competition and thus entails no antitrust liability risk for asset managers.
The Members’ Assembly agenda included making some amendments to the ECGI Statutes, the approval of the Minutes of the previous year’s Assembly and of the 2017 financial statements, the re-election of certain Board Directors, and the approval of the current year’s budget.
The annual lecture was delivered by Professor Antoinette Schoar (MIT) on the subject Is Big Data a Challenge for Boards?, and presented new research on the use of personal data in the United States by financial intermediaries in marketing pre-approved credit cards. The complete presentation is available here.
Following the lecture, ECGI awarded two research prizes for the best papers in the Finance and Law Working Paper Series’ from 2017.
