International Transactions and Post-M&A Disputes in the Sustainability Era
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
The last decades of the twentieth century experienced a growing concern for environmental and social issues. This trend continues today, with reform efforts affecting a wide landscape of fields and industries. The corporate world is not an exception. Corporations are immersed in a revolution, and these business structures must evaluate their role in society (Dieux, 2023). Concepts such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and “Environmental, Social, and Governance factors” have become well-known standards for businesses, leaving behind an era of profit maximization in the shortest possible time (Dieux, 2023). Environmental, Social, and Governance factors (ESG) originated as the main topic in the United Nations Global Compact 2004 Report, Who Cares Wins (United Nations, 2004). The report addressed financial institutions and called on them to resort to standards that would promote sustainability in three different but interrelated topics: environmental protection, social progress, and adequate corporate governance. In the report, financial institutions assessed how considerations for these factors should become more present in the financial industry to continue—and build on—the sustainability trend that commenced in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Although ESG may have been introduced in the financial context, it soon expanded into all industries, and it is now a strategy to create value in society (Garrido, 2022, unpublished). The ESG Report was only one among the international initiatives that targeted increased social responsibility through a holistic perspective. The trend is not only limited to environmental protection and the fight against climate change—although this is the ESG factor that has gained more momentum—but overall human rights protections have been targeted. Initiatives like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement, and the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures derived from COP21 are some examples (Croisant & Barrett, 2023). This new reality has expanded into the legal arena. The ESG trend initially took the form of soft law instruments relying on voluntary action by States and civil society. However, enforceable legal mechanisms have now emerged to address the issue, imposing mandatory due diligence on companies. Some examples are Section 54 (Allen et al., 2024) of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, the UK Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations, Germany Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, or the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD). One of the theories explaining this shift in the approach is judicial interventionism. Initially, court decisions addressed States and breaches of their international law obligations (Croisant & Barrett, 2023). For instance, in the 2015 Urgenda case, the Dutch courts ordered the Dutch government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. The Netherlands appeal was dismissed by the Dutch Supreme Court in 2019. This trend has now expanded to address corporate behavior by private law companies, as evidenced by the Shell judgment. Besides the public legal arena, ESG factors have also entered the field of international business transactions, having become an important topic in contractual negotiations and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions (Croisant & Barrett, 2023). This piece will address the convergence of ESG factors into the corporate realm. It will first delve into the materialization of these abstract factors and ideas into corporate obligations for companies. Then, it will present the disputes and liability risks that arise, along with some suggestions to adapt the dispute resolution process to the M&A and ESG specificities that may arise from these transactions.
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction machine sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Le volet Gemma est une étiquette directe du modèle pour chaque travail de la base, lue sur la notice réduite au titre. Le volet Codex est un classifieur appris des 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et calibré sur les taux pondérés de l'échantillon; les champs sans appui suffisant ne portent aucun appel Codex. Le mode candidate est l'union des deux volets; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont pas des étiquettes humaines.
Scores du classifieur distillé par catégorie (deux têtes)
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,004 | 0,010 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,001 | 0,003 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,007 | 0,005 |
| Communication savante | 0,020 | 0,008 |
| Science ouverte | 0,001 | 0,005 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,011 | 0,008 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,072 | 0,010 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule source (Gemma direct ou Codex distillé), pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».