Samantha is a PhD Candidate at Melbourne Law School. Her doctoral research analyses how shareholders can engage companies and directors on public interest issues.
Samantha’s research interests are the corporate law of Anglo-Commonwealth jurisdictions, with a special focus on shareholder stewardship, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Her work has been published (or are forthcoming) in the Law Quarterly Review, Lloyds’ Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, Asian Journal of Comparative Law, and Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law.
Thesis title
Public Interest Shareholder Engagement
Thesis summary
The value of public interest-orientated considerations (eg “ESG”) in corporate commercial decision-making is a hotly contested issue in both scholarly and business circles. However, how various shareholders work with or around corporate law rules to engage in discourse about and make decisions on investee companies’ actions from a public interest perspective remain poorly understood.
Samantha’s doctoral research aims to fill this gap in legal scholarship examining the corporate law rules and public interest investment context in two target jurisdictions: Australia and Singapore. Employing doctrinal and empirical methodologies, her research examines the opportunities or obstacles that Anglo-Commonwealth corporate law presents for investors as they debate and reach outcomes on whether and how companies should act in a way that is consistent with the public interest.
Supervisors
- Corporate Law
- Commercial Law