Directors' responsibilities in a time of change

On 6 March, 2026, the first Intesa Sanpaolo Business Law and Regulation conference was held at the Saïd Business School, with the theme 'Directors' responsibilities in a time of change'.

The event was organised by the Centre for Corporate Reputation at the Business School, the European Corporate Governance Institute, the Oxford Law Faculty, and the Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College. 

The program featured papers on a range of current issues affecting company directors, including the implications of increasing mandates for board involvement ('Board Overload', presented by Roy Shapira), corporate climate litigation (featuring two papers: 'Mapping Corporate Climate Litigation outside the US' (Ekaterina Aristova), and 'Manager Partitioning' (William Moon), and sustainability due diligence (featuring two papers: 'Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence: All Roads Lead to Somewhere' (Andreas Engert) and Kish Parella ('The Human Rights Obligations of Corporate Directors'). These papers were framed by a keynote from John Armour (Dean of the Oxford Law Faculty) that surveyed recent trends from a transatlantic perspective, focusing in particular on directors' responsibilities vis-a-vis related party transactions, and stakeholders, and followed by a panel on directors' duties in practice (featuring Matteo Boaglio, Intesa Sanpaolo; Karoline Herms, Legal & General Investment Management; Maria Darby-Walker, non-executive director; and Barbara Navarro, Banco Santander). A diverse and distinguished audience of academics, non-executive directors, policymakers and members of the judiciary ensured a rich and insightful discussion throughout.

This event was organised by Rupert Younger (Centre for Corporate Reputation), Luca Enriques (Bocconi University and Visiting Professor in the Oxford Law Faculty), and Kristin van Zwieten.