Directors' Duties and Sustainability
Sustainable Finance Workshop in Sydney
Directors' Duties and Sustainability: Focusing on Financial Institutions
Friday, 13 March IBM Australia, Sydney
As sustainability disclosure, climate governance, and ESG supervision become more embedded in regulatory frameworks, boards face heigtened expectations around oversight, risk management, and accountability.
This half-day workshop adopts a comparative Australia-Taiwan lens to explore how directors' duties are being interpreted and enforced in practice, and whether existing accountability mechanisms are effective in influencing board behaviour.
Program
12:30 PM | Registration and Light Lunch | |
1:00 PM | Welcome and Opening Remarks Remarks by organisers and distinguished guests  Prof Gerry Nagtzaam Monash Law (Host)  Director-General David Cheng-Wei Wu Taipei Economic and Cultural Office  Prof Ross Buckley UNSW Law (Co-host)  Ms Madeline Dermatossian IBM Promontory (Co-host) | |
1:20 PM | Keynote Speeches Two short keynotes on directors’ duties and sustainability in Australia and Taiwan. Keynote I (1:20–1:40 PM) Directors’ Duties and Sustainability in Taiwan: Responsibilities of Financial Institution Boards under ESG and Climate Governance  Prof Andrew Lin National Taiwan University College of Law Keynote II (1:40–2:00 PM) Director' Duties with regard to nature and biodiversity in Australia  Ms Sarah Barker Pollination Law Managing Director | |
2:00 PM | Afternoon Tea & Networking Break | |
2:30 PM | Panel Discussion I Directors’ Duties and Governance under the Rising Sustainability Regulatory Wave Focus: evolving regulatory expectations, fiduciary duties, and board-level governance responses in financial institutions Moderator  A/Prof Cheng-Yun Tsang Monash University Panellists  Ms Miriam Kleiner Ashurst Partner, Legal Governance Advisory Ms Madeline Dermatossian IBM Promontory Managing Director / Practice Leader ANZ  Dr Tim Bowley Monash University Adjunct Associate Professor  Dr Albert Chou Taiwan Stock Exchange Senior Vice President  A/Prof Edith Su National Chung Hsing University College of Law | |
3:40 PM | Panel Discussion II From Regulation to Enforcement: Accountability and Market Discipline in Sustainable Finance Focus: enforcement mechanisms, regulatory supervision, litigation risks, and whether accountability tools are effective in shaping board behaviour Moderator Prof Gerry Nagtzaam Monash University Panellists  Ms Hannah Glass Ashurst Special Counsel, Financial Regulatory Practice  Ms I-Ching Tseng Tseng Consulting Director Prof Andrew Lin National Taiwan University College of Law  A/Prof Ting-Hsien Cheng National Central University Graduate Institute of Industrial Economics  Judge Wen-Ju Wu Taiwan High Court | |
4:50 PM | Closing Remarks |
Acknowledgements
This workshop is jointly organised through the generous collaboration of our hosting and co-hosting partners:
The Australia-Taiwan Collaboration in Addressing Legal and Regulatory Challenges in Sustainable Finance (ATLAS Finance) project is supported by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations and the Australian Office, Taipei.