From the Chief Editor
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a school of thought is still in its infancy, having been established as recently as the 1970s. It has, within its short span of life, been elevated to a buzzword due to the large impact business-oriented corporate bodies often have on issues extraneous to mere finance. These include environmental concerns and the interests of society at large.
Due to the “economics-first” maximising mindset that many lawyers and businessmen employ in the course of their work, we have found it fitting to provide a …

For The love of One’s Company.
If the headline strikes you as ironic, you’re probably not alone. The Big Bad Corporation still grips the popular imagination: companies are bullies, companies are bureaucratic, companies are obsessed with profit margins, companies are… evil. Intellectually, we do appreciate the benefits of not regulating companies. Cookie-cutter legislation only increases transaction costs; its aim of regulating managers’ behaviour can be achieved more elegantly by free, competitive markets, such as the market for corporate securities.
Yet this fixation on economic efficiency is precisely the kind of fixation which …

When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown remarked that CSR today is not so much about philanthropic donation for good causes, but is rather a responsibility that companies accept towards the community around them. Indeed, the success of corporations is dependent on the existence of a healthy society, and vice versa. An educated, healthy and motivated workforce is crucial to the development of successful companies, which in turn creates jobs, wealth and innovation, improving the society’s general standard of living.
The U.K., with Stephen Timms as the CSR minister, …

As a form of corporate social responsibility, corporate governance is self-regulation that is more concerned with enhancing shareholder value and also guarding the stakeholder’s position in society. The latter theory is arguably more relevant in light of corporate scandals worldwide. It serves as the framework that ensures board accountability to the shareholders and, arguably, to society-at-large. In fact, Sir Adrian Cadbury in his Corporate Governance Report (1999) explained corporate governance as ‘holding the balance between economic and social goals between individual and communal goals’.
Corporate governance is important, firstly because …

Odex Pte. Ltd. (Odex) is a Singapore-incorporated company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional consumption. The company catapulted into notoriety this year when it applied for court orders against several internet service providers (ISPs) to reveal personal details of downloaders of anime licensed to Odex. Having successfully obtained discovery orders against ISPs SingNet and Starhub, Odex proceeded to issue letters of demand threatening legal action, both civil and criminal, against identified downloaders, barring out-of-court settlement. The sums demanded in settlement talks ranged from S$3000 to S$5000. Amidst …