CLARS Law and Business Seminar: Corporate Governance in an Era of Geoeconomics
On Thursday 20 November, Professor Curtis Milhaupt and Professor John Thwaites AM explored how geoeconomics is reshaping corporate governance amid rising geopolitical and regulatory pressures.
CLARS Director Professor Jennifer Hill (right-back), Deputy Director Dr Steve Kourabas (left-front) and keynote speaker Professor Curtis Milhaupt (left-back), joined by seminar attendees.
Globalisation’s so-called “End of History” for corporate law has given way to an era of geoeconomics – the use of economic tools for power politics.
Corporations are now on the front lines of geopolitical rivalry, national security regulation, and technological competition. In this seminar, Professor Curtis Milhaupt (Stanford Law School) examined how geoeconomic statecraft – exemplified by U.S.-China tensions, export controls, and weaponised interdependence – is reshaping the policy environment for corporate governance, supported by commentary from Professor John Thwaites AM (Monash University).
This CLARS Law and Business Seminar highlighted emerging challenges for boards of directors, compliance systems, and investors as firms navigate the “return of history” in global markets. Curtis' presentation highlighted the shift over the last 25 years from an optimistic view of globalisation to growing fragmentation, nationalism and use of corporations as economic tools via state capitalism. The presentation, and the extensive Q&A session following it, traversed many implications of this major paradigm shift for governments, boards of directors and shareholders.
Event Details
When: Thursday 20 November, 2025
Time: 5-7pm including light refreshments
Venue: Monash College City Campus
Room 903, 750 Collins St, Melbourne
Keynote Speaker
Professor Curtis J. Milhaupt, William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Professor Curtis J. Milhaupt is an internationally recognised expert on comparative corporate governance and one of the world’s foremost commentators on the legal systems of East Asia (particularly Japanese law), and state capitalism. He is a Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Prior to entering academia, Professor Milhaupt practised corporate law in New York and Tokyo with a major law firm. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he served on the Columbia Law Review, and a B.A. with High Honors from the University of Notre Dame. He also conducted graduate studies in both law and international relations at the University of Tokyo on fellowships under the auspices of the Japanese Ministry of Education, the Social Science Research Council, and the Japan Foundation.
Commentator
Professor John Thwaites AM
Professor John Thwaites AM is a Professorial Fellow, Monash University, and Chair of the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and Climateworks Centre. Professor Thwaites is Chair of Melbourne Water and a Director of Fair Trade Australia New Zealand. He has been Chair of the Australian Building Codes Board, President of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and a director of the Australian Green Building Council.
Professor Thwaites was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1999 until his retirement in 2007. During this period he held various Ministerial portfolios including Minister of Health, Minister of Environment and was Victoria’s first Minister for Climate Change. In these portfolios he was responsible for major reforms in social policy, health, environment and water.
Chair
Professor Jennifer Hill, CLARS Director, Faculty of Law, Monash University
Professor Jennifer Hill is the Inaugural Bob Baxt AO Chair of Corporate and Commercial Law and Director of CLARS. Her scholarship on comparative corporate law and governance is widely cited in judicial decisions and academic literature in Australia, the United States, Europe and Asia.
Professor Hill has received several ARC Discovery grants and held visiting teaching and research positions at leading international institutions, including Cambridge University; Cornell; NYU; University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University. She is a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Finance and EU Law (EUSFiL), University of Genoa, a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
