Corporate Law Reform: Focusing on Issues that Matter
From: Edward Waitzer and Douglas Sarro
To: The Hon. Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development
Date: September 6, 2019
Re: Corporate Law Reform: Focusing on Issues that Matter
A striking feature of corporate governance law reform is the steady flow of new controversies and consequential regulatory proposals.
Corporate law has spawned a governance reform industry that has become adept at feeding itself, most often with regulatory initiatives that are, at best, symbolic – as outlined by Marcel Kahan and Edward Rock, they certainly cannot be explained by their relevance to improving either corporate governance or performance.
Historically, such reforms have been effected through regulatory policy or “soft law.” Actually, amending corporate (and other commercial) law statutes in Canada has been a rare occurrence, as there tends to be little political currency in such efforts.