Professor Jean du Plessis, of Deakin Law School at Deakin University (Australia), paid a research visit to Bucerius Law School from 1-19 September 2017. He explored opportunities for research collaboration and student exchange between Bucerius Law School and Deakin Law School.
New partner university
This resulted in a student exchange agreement being signed in October 2017. The agreement will allow up to three Deakin students a year to join the International Programme offered by Bucerius Law School, and up to three Bucerius Law School students a year to take a number of units (subjects) offered by Deakin Law School from early July until the end of September at its Burwood Campus in Melbourne or its Waterfront Campus in Geelong. It is hoped the first exchanges will take place in 2018.
During Professor Du Plessis’s visit in September he also addressed our international students on “The fallacy of profit maximisation for shareholders as the primary duty of directors ‘to act in the best interests of the corporation’”.
Joint forum
Another purpose of Professor Du Plessis’s September visit was to finalise arrangements for a joint forum between Bucerius Law School’s Institute for Corporate and Capital Markets Law and Deakin Law School’s Centre for Comparative Corporate Governance. The forum theme was “The Regulation of Multinational Corporations and Company Groups and Supply Chains”. The forum was held from 3-4 November 2017.
For this forum, Professor Du Plessis returned to Bucerius Law School for a week. There were 13 presenters at the event. Four were from Germany, and the others from Australia, New Zealand, the US, Denmark and South Korea. Professor Dr Jörn Axel Kämmerer and Dr Alma Pekmezovic from Bucerius Law School chaired sessions and actively participated in the robust deliberations at the forum. It is hoped that in future similar joint forums, conferences and seminars will be held involving Bucerius Law School’s Institute for Corporate and Capital Markets Law and Deakin Law School’s Centre for Comparative Corporate Governance.
