Corporate Transparency Laws: A Hollow Victory?

Mares, Radu

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3213212

Cited by 7 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…For example, in France, companies must prove they have adequate due diligence procedures in place to prevent human rights impacts, including modern slavery. This model has often been contrasted with the “soft” requirements of the U.K. model (Mares, 2018, p. 196). Hence, it would be interesting to assess the extent to which French companies create “symbolic structures precisely for the purpose of avoiding liability” (Edelman, 2016, p. 38).…”

Section: Discussion and Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include the 2011 United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs); the 2012 California Transparency in Supply Chains Act; the 2017 French Duty of Vigilance Law; the 2014 European Union Directive (2014/95/EU), which mandates large companies to disclose nonfinancial information, including human rights due diligence. This phenomenon has attracted considerable scholarly debate (see, for example, Mares, 2018; Monciardini & Conaldi, 2019). In addition to requiring greater transparency, the Act has also toughened penalties to allow a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for serious human trafficking and modern slavery offenses, and provided safeguards for victims.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Organizational Dynamics of Compliance With the UK Modern Slavery Act in the Food and Tobacco Sector

2019

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Empirical studies indicate that business compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act is disappointing, but they struggle to make sense of this phenomenon. This article offers a novel framework to understand how business organizations construct the meaning of compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act. Our analysis builds on the endogeneity of law theory developed by Edelman. Empirically, our study is based on the analysis of the modern slavery statements of 10 FTSE 100 (Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index) companies in the food and tobacco sector, backed by interviews with business, civil society, and public officers. We offer a dynamic model that draws attention to the role of compliance professionals in framing ambiguous rules and devising a variety of organizational responses to modern slavery law. Contrary to extant research that tends to praise organizations for going "beyond compliance", our study underlines the risks of managerialization of modern slavery law, whereby merely symbolic structures come to be associated with legal compliance, even when they are ineffective at tackling modern slavery.

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Section: Discussion and Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The Organizational Dynamics of Compliance With the UK Modern Slavery Act in the Food and Tobacco Sector

2019

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“…It remains to be seen whether the passage of 2014/95/EU will end up as “a paper tiger” (Spießhofer , p. 1281), “a hollow victory” (Mares ), or whether it will make a lasting and meaningful contribution to corporate accountability across Europe and beyond. Further research is required to develop theoretically and empirically rigorous explanations of the politics of upward regulatory harmonization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They maintained that NFD must remain voluntary and business‐driven: the Directive would create red tape, costs, and administrative burdens; weaken business competitiveness; undermine innovation; and transform CSR into a box‐ticking exercise (BusinessEurope ). Business organizations also feared that mandatory NFD would bring new legal liabilities for companies – and would possibly affect tort law (Mares , p. 206). In addition to this strategy of blanket opposition, BusinessEurope also made a number of specific recommendations, such as restricting the scope to publicly listed companies, eliminating any requirements for external auditing or reporting on risks, and allowing a separate non‐financial report, as well as a broader comply or explain approach than was proposed by the Commission (BusinessEurope ).…”

Section: The Positions Of Interest Groups At the European Union Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mandating NFD can help to address corporations’ disregard for their social and environmental consequences. Of course, transparency requirements are not the same as coercive laws that mandate changes in corporate practice, impose liability for harm (Mares ), or provide rights of formal legal redress to victims of corporate malfeasance: “reporting is only the tip of the iceberg” (Stormer S 31 July 2015, personal communication). Nevertheless, it is a step in the direction of greater accountability, and one that is “less costly in political terms than direct regulation” (Sheehy , p. 627).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The challenges of upward regulatory harmonization: The case of sustainability reporting in the European Union

Kinderman

2019

Regulation & Governance

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What are the prospects for the upward harmonization of regulatory standards, and why do governments support or oppose more stringent supranational regulation? To answer these questions, this paper examines an important case of upward regulatory harmonization, the European Union's non-financial disclosure Directive 2014/95/EU, which requires large firms to report on their social, environmental, and human rights impacts. In spite of favorable circumstances, the Directive's opponents watered down the Commission's proposal during the course of the negotiations. Upward regulatory harmonization is difficult because of the adjustment costs it imposes on the private sector. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of countries' positions in the negotiations: Germany was the most hardline opponent, France the strongest supporter, and the United Kingdom was somewhere inbetween. For most countries, private sector adjustment costs determine government support and opposition for upward harmonization at the supranational level, but the analysis shows that partisan politics and varieties of capitalism also matter.

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Outsourcing the enforcement of modern slavery: Overcoming the limitations of a market-based disclosure model

Harris

Nolan

2021

Journal of Industrial Relations

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Recent legislative efforts to address modern slavery emphasise corporate disclosure as the primary regulatory tool. New modern slavery disclosure laws harden the expectation that business will conduct itself responsibly; however, they are founded on a soft approach to enforcement which is essentially outsourced to the market. This paper questions the effectiveness of this disclosure-based enforcement mechanism, which primarily relies on a narrowly defined concept of ‘the market’ as the basis for its regulatory strategy. Drawing on comparisons with alternative legislative enforcement frameworks to counter foreign bribery and illegal logging, this paper highlights the opportunities and limitations of reliance on market forces for regulation and suggests a path forward for enhancing the modern slavery enforcement approach.

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Corporate Transparency Laws: A Hollow Victory?

Cited by 7 publications

References 18 publications

The Organizational Dynamics of Compliance With the UK Modern Slavery Act in the Food and Tobacco Sector

The Organizational Dynamics of Compliance With the UK Modern Slavery Act in the Food and Tobacco Sector

The challenges of upward regulatory harmonization: The case of sustainability reporting in the European Union

Outsourcing the enforcement of modern slavery: Overcoming the limitations of a market-based disclosure model

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