Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers
Launch Week

#GAILLaunch 

Miércoles 23 de febrero, 17:00 - 16:45 GMT

11:00 MX/GT/CR/NI/HN  | 12:00 PE/COL/EC/PA  | 13:00 VE/DOM/PR  | 14:00 ARG/BRA/UY/CL/PY

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Este evento virtual es presentado por la Junta Regional de la Alianza Global de Abogados de Impacto, GAIL Latinoamérica. La sesión explorará el papel de los abogados de impacto en América Latina.

Introducción a cargo de Rachel Avellar Sotomaior Karam, fundadora de TESK Sociedade de Advogados y miembro de la Junta Directiva de GAIL.

Panel 1: ¿Cómo los abogados pueden ser aliados estratégicos de los negocios de impacto?

A medida que los negocios cambian e incorporan el impacto ambiental y social en su ADN, ¿qué tan diferentes tienden a ser las demandas legales de las empresas?

En esta sesión se entablará una conversación a través de la mesa cliente-abogado con dos empresas para entender las lagunas existentes y las necesidades previsibles en la práctica legal que desafían a los abogados a nuevas fronteras.

Participan Marcelo Behar, Vicepresidente de Sostenibilidad y Asuntos de Grupo de Natura &Co y Juan Pablo Larenas, Chief Impact Officer de Betterfly y cofundador de Sistema B.

Moderadora: Paola Fonseca, Directora, Viva Idea y en Políticas Públicas de Inversión de Impacto. 

Panel 2: Práctica legal para el bien común

Introducción a cargo de Juan Diego Mujica Filippi, Coordinador Académico "Las empresas con propósito y la regulación del cuarto sector" y Miembro del Consejo de Administración de GAIL. 

Resulta desconcertante que, teniendo en cuenta la gran escala y complejidad de los problemas sociales y ambientales en todo el mundo y en América Latina, la práctica jurídica parezca distante de apuntar a acciones colectivas y coordinadas hacia el desarrollo sostenible. ¿Cómo podemos fomentar un ambiente legal en las universidades, así como en las grandes y pequeñas firmas de abogados que promuevan e implementen una mentalidad hacia una práctica legal de triple impacto positivo?

Desde el punto de vista de la investigación académica y de las oportunidades profesionales de un amplio abanico, esta sesión explorará cómo se están descubriendo las cuestiones jurídicas más urgentes y futuras y diseñando un nuevo papel para los abogados con el objetivo de promover la justicia como bien común. 

Participarán Gabriel Berger, Profesor de la Escuela de Negocios y Director del Centro de Innovación Social (CIS) de la Universidad SanAndrés, Lila Gasca, Directora de Pro-bono & Responsible Business en Hogan Lovells México y Vanessa Bedoya Becerra, Especialista de compras públicas del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.

Moderadora: Ivana Calcagno, Fundadora de YouHub y miembro del Consejo Regional de GAIL Latinoamérica y Paúl Noboa Velasco, Profesor en la Universidad de San Francisco de Quito.

Palabras de clausura a cargo de Constanza Connolly, Fundadora de Keidos Impacto Legal y Vicepresidenta de GAIL.

Esta sesión es en español.

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Para asistir a esta sesión, inscríbase en la Semana de Lanzamiento de GAIL y añada esta sesión a su calendario.

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GAIL Latinoamérica presents: What Do Impact Businesses Need from Lawyers & Legal Practice for the Common Good

Wednesday 23 February, 17:00  - 16:45 GMT

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11:00 MX/GT/CR/NI/HN  | 12:00 PE/COL/EC/PA  | 13:00 VE/DOM/PR  | 14:00 ARG/BRA/UY/CL/PY

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This virtual event is presented by the Regional Board of Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, GAIL Latinoamérica. The session will explore the role of impact lawyers in Latin America.

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Introduction by Rachel Avellar Sotomaior Karam, Founder of TESK Sociedade de Advogados and Board Member of GAIL.

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Panel 1: What Do Impact Businesses Need from Lawyers?

As the market system is being reshaped and reorganized to include environmental and social welfare in its core, how different do business legal demands tend to be?

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This session will bring a conversation across the client-attorney table with two companies to understand the existing gaps and foreseeable needs on the legal practice that challenge lawyers to new frontiers.

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With speakers Marcelo Behar, Vice President - Sustainability & Group Affairs at Natura &Co and Juan Pablo Larenas, Chief Impact Officer at Betterfly and Sistema B Co-founder.

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Moderator: Paola Fonseca, Impact Investment Public Policy and Director, Viva Idea

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Panel 2: Legal Practice for the Common Good

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Introduction by Juan Diego Mujica Filippi, Academic Coordinator “Purpose-driven companies and the regulation of the fourth sector” and Board Member of GAIL. 

It is puzzling that considering the large scale and complexities of social and environmental problems across the globe and in Latinamerica, the legal practice seems distant from aiming collective and coordinated actions towards sustainable development. How can we foster a legal environment in universities, as well as big and small firms that promote and implement a mindset towards a positive triple-impact legal practice?

From the viewpoint of academic research and professional opportunities of a wide range, this session will explore how pressing and future legal issues are being discovered and designing a new role for lawyers aiming to promote justice as the common good. 

With speakers Gabriel Berger, Professor at the Business School and Director of the Social Innovation Center (CIS) at Universidad SanAndrés, Lila Gasca, Pro-bono & Responsible Business Director at Hogan Lovells Mexico and Vanessa Bedoya Becerra, Procurement Specialist at the Inter American Development Bank.

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Moderator: Ivana Calcagno, Founder, YouHub and member of the Regional Board of GAIL Latin America and Paúl Noboa Velasco, Professor at Universidad de San Francisco de Quito.

Closing words by Constanza Connolly, Founder Keidos Impacto Legal and Vice President of GAIL.

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This session is in Spanish.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.

Thursday 24 February, 17:00 - 18:45 GMT

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08:00 AKST  |  09:00 PST  |  10:00 MST  |  11:00 CST  |  12:00 EST

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This virtual event is presented by the Regional Board of Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, GAIL North America. The session will explore the role of impact lawyers in North America and the GAIL Launch Week themes: impact investing, purposeful business, climate, ESG, and business and human rights.

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Panel 1: B Corps, Benefit Corporations and IPOs

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During the past year, several B Corps and benefit corporations have conducted initial public offerings of their shares.  This panel will explore the securities law issues that have begun to emerge from those offerings and the reaction of the marketplace as investors have been able to invest in those types of businesses.

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Moderated by Elizabeth Diffley, Partner and Co-Lead of Faegre Drinker's ESG practice. With speakers Melissa James Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and Brittany Ruiz Partner at Latham & Watkins LLP. 

Panel 2: Hybrid Structures - Combined For-Profit, Non-Profit Ventures

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Join this session to hear about non-profit/for-profit joint ventures, non-profit/for-profit tandem structures and 3-sided managed hybrid models.

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Hybrid legal ventures are gaining traction in the US. 

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From large multi-billion dollar ventures such as Fox/NatGeo, Network for Good, and Children’s TV Workshop/Sesame Street, to startups like VILLAGE and SeaTrees/Coastal Carbon, entrepreneurs are combining for-profit and non-profit entities into hybrid structures to get the best of both worlds.

When done correctly, a hybrid or “tandem”  structure allows a venture to lock in its mission and access philanthropic income and capital, while simultaneously engaging in robust trading activities and leveraging risk capital paying market returns or higher. 

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The relationship between the two entities is key and is primarily the domain of lawyers and accountants working with corporate officers and managers. Putting these deals together and navigating the issues successfully is a challenge, but experience teaches it can be done. 

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Our panellists have done it and have the scars to prove it. Come listen to their stories.

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Moderated by Allen Bromberger, Founding Partner at Bromberger Law, and the inaugural Chair of GAIL North America.

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With speakers Richard Newman, Partner at Arent Fox LLP,  Noah Plewa CEO and Co-Founder of VILLAGE and Bill Strathmann CEO at Network for Good.

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This virtual session is in English.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.

Friday 25 February, 13:00 - 14:45 GMT

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13:00 WET  |  14:00 CET  |  15:00 EET 

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This virtual event is presented by the Regional Board of Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, GAIL Europe. This interactive session will explore issues relevant for impact lawyers in Europe.

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Introduction by Marleen Denef, Founder of Impact Advocaten.

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Part 1: A Framework for Reimagining Business in the New Economy

What is our strategy for a sustainable planet and future? The new economy could act as the framework under which lawyers and businesses operate. What new types of economy will be needed to solve systemic problems? Will we need a new definition of the corporation?

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Kees Klomp, Founding Partner of Thrive Institute and Professor of Applied Science at Rotterdam University will set out the fundamentals for a new economy.

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Part 2: Anchoring Impact in Investment Term-Sheets 

The session prompts a discussion around the negotiation of a term sheet and how to anchor impact through exits, stakeholder management, and other key questions/clauses, through the presentation of a case study. This will be followed by questions, comments and discussion by the participants.

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Part 2 case study is presented by Raluca Radu, General Counsel at Fairphone and Co-Founder of Legal Innovation for Sustainable Investments (LISI) and Gabriel de Almeida, Legal Counsel - Fund Transactions at Triple Jump and Co-Founder of LISI.

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Part 3: The Position of Non-Profit Organisations in the EU

Non-profit organisations in Germany currently face the problem of not being allowed to take a position on political issues, otherwise, they would jeopardize their non-profit status. This does not correspond to the current understanding of an active civil society. This session is meant to serve as an exchange about the legal situation in other European countries and to be understood as just one example where harmonisation of non-profit law in the EU could start.

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Part 3 discussion is led by Alexander Vielwerth, Attorney at Winheller.

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This virtual session is in English.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.

#GAILLaunch 

Monday 28 February, 14:00 GMT

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09:00 EST | 14:00 GMT | 15:00 CET | 19:30 IST

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This mainstage event will present the formal launch of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL).

Join for the unveiling of the forward-looking agenda of the organisation, which will support the growth of a community of ‘impact lawyers’ who will advocate for and champion a rapid and just transition towards a truly sustainable and inclusive economy.

Featured GAIL speakers include William H. Clark, Jr., President of GAIL.

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The keynote by Sir Ronald Cohen, Chair of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG) will discuss the Impact Revolution and its implications for law and lawyers.

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This will be followed by an in-depth panel on the 'Regulatory Endgame for the Just Transition', moderated by Simon Mundy, Moral Money Editor at the Financial Times.

The panel will explore the imperative to change the economic system and the role of impact lawyers and businesses. Panellists will give their perspective on the regulatory endgame as we strive for a just transition.

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Speakers

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• Nate Saint Victor, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Engine No. 1, the activist shareholder impact investment group that successfully placed three new directors on the Exxon Board last year to push for greater emphasis on sustainability. 

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• Alberto Allemano, Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law at HEC Paris and founder of The Good Lobby, a non-profit committed to democratising Europe through the creation of citizen-powered ‘good lobbies’. His research and public interest work have centred on how law and policies can be used to improve people’s lives, through the adoption of power-shifting reforms countering social, health, economic, and political disparities.

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• Dr. Gillian M Marcelle, CEO of Resilience Capital Ventures LLC. Dr Marcelle developed the Triple B Framework to improve flows and allocation of capital, and her contributions on diversity, inclusion, accountability and alignment with the SDGs are becoming increasingly influential. 

• Julia Black, Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she specialises in the legitimacy and dynamics of regulatory regimes. She is President of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences, and an External Member of the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Committee.

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This virtual session is in English.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.

Monday 28 February, 17:00 - 18:45 GMT

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​This hybrid event is available to attend either in-person at the offices of CDC Group, Victoria, London, or virtually.

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This session is presented by the Regional Board of Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, GAIL UK.

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The session will explore the role of impact lawyers in the UK and the GAIL Launch Week themes: impact investing, purposeful business, climate, ESG, and business and human rights.​

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Ranajoy Basu, Partner McDermott Will & Emery and inaugural Chair of the UK Regional Board of Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers will introduce the event.​

Opening Presentation:

Paddy Carter, Director of Development Impact (Research and Policy) will share the impact approach developed by CDC Group, the UK's Development Finance Institution, setting out how CDC has embedded impact at the heart of their investment process.

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Panel 1: Structuring Impact Funds - Innovative Forms and Incentives

This panel considers the way impact funds are being structured and the use of non-uniform, innovative forms that accommodate different forms of capital with different risk profiles. Our panel will discuss current trends and best practices in structuring performance incentives to achieve impact objects.​

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The speakers will share perspectives on new incentive structures in impact funds in the US and European markets and the use of guarantee facilities to incentivise commercial players to move into the blended finance space.​

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Moderated by Louise Ollier, Senior Counsel at CDC Group.

Speakers:

• Christopher Garner, Associate General Counsel at SunFunder Inc

• Simon Meldrum, Innovative Finance at Red Cross.

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Panel 2: ESG,  BHR and Commercial Pressures: Tackling Conflicts

This panel will explore the conflict between environmental, social and governance factors, the human rights responsibilities of business, and commercial pressures. 

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It will consider how to manage the tension between ethical decisions, and business norms or stakeholder pressures in the context of increasing regulation in this area.

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In the face of these challenges, what are the legal opportunities, realities and complexities of implementing an impact approach? Our panel will look at the role of the Contractual Clauses Project which has developed Model Contract Clauses to Protect Human Rights in International Supply Chains, and explore the conflict between the E and S of ESG, for example what to do if an investment gives great E impact but poor (or even negative) S impact.

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Moderated by Naomi Sander, Associate at Gowling WLG

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Speakers: 

• Sukhvir Basran, Senior Legal Director and Co-Head of Impact Financing at Hogan Lovells

• Olivia Windham Stewart, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the BHR Law Program - Rutgers Law School, Center for Corporate Law and Governance

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This session is in English.

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To attend this session in person, register for a GAIL UK in-person ticket for the GAIL Launch Week and add the in-person session to your calendar.

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If you have registered for the GAIL Launch Week already and would like to convert your ticket to include in-person attendance at the GAIL UK event at 17:00 GMT on 28 February, click here to get in touch.

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Once you have registered to attend in person, you will be sent your access ticket by 1 pm GMT on the day of the event. The event is taking place at CDC Group plc.,123 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6DE

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To attend this session virtually, add the virtual session to your calendar and use your usual registration for the GAIL Launch Week.

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#GAILLaunch 

Wednesday 2 March, 04:00 - 05:45 GMT

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09:30 IST | 12:00 SGT | 15:00 AEDT | 17:00 NZDT

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This event is presented by the Regional Board of Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, GAIL Asia Pacific. 

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In this session we will hear from lawyers who are focussed on empowering impact through their careers – what does that involve and what are some examples of the challenges that we face? Join two panels that explore this question from different perspectives.

Panel 1: Being an Impact Lawyer

The session will focus on what it is to be an impact lawyer in Asia Pacific and the practical challenges that are faced.

This panel will be facilitated by Steven Moe, Chair of GAIL Asia Pacific and Partner at Parry Field Lawyers, New Zealand, He will be joined by Emma Kostas, Solicitor at Prolegis Lawyers, Australia and Tze-wei Ng, Associate at Stephenson Harwood LLP, Hong Kong.

Panel 2: B Corps, Social Enterprise and Impact-Driven Companies

In our second panel, we will focus on some specific issues we often see being faced and in particular considering legal structures in the context of social entrepreneurship and the increasing focus on impact shown by examples like B Corp status and the importance of the SDGs to measure impact and avoid social washing. 

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This panel is facilitated by Michael Ryland, Director of the Centre for Social Finance Law, Australia, who will be joined by Andrew Davies, CEO of B Lab Australia and New Zealand Ltd and Nina Yousefpour, Head of Certification and Impact at Social Traders.

During this event, there will be chances to connect and meet others through small group breakouts.

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This virtual session is in English.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.

Wednesday 2 March, 09:00 GMT

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09:00 GMT | 10:00 CET | 14:30 IST | 17:00 SGT | 20:00 AEDT

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This panel takes place as a GAIL Launch Week Mainstage Global session.

The session will explore the changing landscape of ESG disclosure and regulation in key markets including Europe, the US and the UK.

Our panel will discuss the evolution of ESG in global markets and the role of regulation in ESG ratings, as well as the role of lawyers in strategies to tackle greenwashing, including recent examples such as the US Securities complaint against JICA.​

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Featured speakers include Phil Spyropoulos, Partner at Eversheds Sutherland, Bernadette Maheandiran, Research and Legal Analyst at Market Forces and Megan Clay, Lawyer at ClientEarth.

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This virtual session is in English.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.

#GAILLaunch 

Friday 4 March, 14:00 GMT

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09:00 EST | 14:00 GMT | 15:00 CET | 19:30 IST

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This mainstage event will close the Launch Week of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL).

Sarah Dobson, Executive Director of GAIL will set out the forward-looking agenda for GAIL, and its aims to support this and the next generation of ‘impact lawyers’ who will champion a rapid and just transition towards a sustainable and inclusive economy. 

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This will be followed by an in-depth panel exploring capital markets, externalities, benefit corporations and universal ownership. 

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This panel will look at why fiduciaries need to concern themselves with the performance of the markets overall, considering what happens when idiosyncratic company risk has been eliminated in accordance with Modern Portfolio Theory.

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Panellists will present recent research suggesting that many current approaches to shareholder activism for sustainability are ineffective, and draw conclusions around the efficacy of measures such as director removal, and denial of new funds.

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The discussion will also explore how promoting the interests of universal owners represents a step-change from ESG integration.

Moderated by Rick Alexander, CEO of The Shareholder Commons.

Speakers: 

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• David Rouch, Partner at Freshfields, who will share conclusions from Freshfields Report 2.0

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• Will Martindale, Group Head of Sustainability at Cardano

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• Sara Murphy, Chief Strategy Officer of The Shareholder Commons

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• Dr Ellen Quigley, Senior Research Associate in Climate Risk & Sustainable Finance at The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer (Responsible Investment) at the University of Cambridge

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This virtual session is in English.

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To attend this session, register for the GAIL Launch Week and add this session to your calendar.