Welcome!

To all those reading this I am David Gibbs; I am a Lecturer in Law at the University of East Anglia.

I created this blog as a general out-let of ideas for my research, as well as keeping those interested up-to-date on my research and general interests.

I completed my PhD thesis at the University of East Anglia in 2014. The thesis was recommended for the award of PhD with no corrections. My external examiner was Prof. Simon Deakin (Cambridge) and internal examiner was Prof. Morten Hviid.
My PhD research centred on directors' duties and company law. The thesis was titled 'Non-Executive Self-Interest: Fiduciary Duties and Corporate Governance'. It was a doctrinal and empirical study on whether self-interest was suitably controlled amongst non-executive directors.

My supervisors were Prof. Mathias Siems, Prof. Duncan Sheehan, Dr. Sara Connolly and Dr. Rob Heywood

All opinions of any existing or future blogpost are my own. They do not necessarily represent the views of any of my associated institutions.
ORCID 0000-0002-6596-8536



Thursday 4 August 2016

The Handbook of Board Governance

Coming towards the end of a busy period of work, the blog has been neglected.

What has been keeping me busy. First, the Handbook on Board Governance. I have been asked to review it for a journal. I am only a chapter in but it promises to provide some useful insight (despite one pet peeve of an author describing the director's fiduciary duties as loyalty and care - there is no fiduciary duty of care!)

I am also quite interested to read one chapter that claims separate legal personality and limited liability is being continually eroded through increased shareholder accountability. As far as I have observed that it is in fact the opposite.

I have also been working on my British Academy Quantitative Skills Award, as it draws to an end this month. I have learnt about using STATA, dummy coding, mediating hierarchy, moderation, sobel test, and logistic regressions. I have used these and applied them to my work on derivative claims. The paper is focusing on 'practical convergence or legal irritants in shareholder protection'. The statistical evidence reveals very little shareholder protection since the introduction of the Companies Act 2006, suggesting that the formal change of legal rules has done little to nothing to meet the objectives of the reform.

Therefore, we are likely to see plenty more select committees and legislation to rectify corporate misfeasance such as that from the BHS scandal, because internal company processes are ineffective in dealing with it. The unacceptable face of capitalism will continue. Employee representation on boards to deal with it? A palatable political response that will have no effect in the UK. It fails to address the actual problems that exist in employment law and properly recognise the company's separate legal status.

Finally, I am working towards finishing a new thesis on fiduciary duties. More to follow in due course on this.




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