ABSTRACT
Globalisation has caused significant economic and legal changes over the past few decades, shaping global markets, increasing consumer choice, but on the other hand also increasing social inequality. The period in the 1990s of financial fever, accompanied by weak corporate governance and a focus on external growth, hopes of massive profits and immediate recourse to debt leverage and an absence of appropriate corporate law limitations, culminated in the financial crises of the 2000s, guided by the principle of shareholder value primacy which provided the fertile ground for such short-termism. The chapter discusses the European Union (EU) implementation of shareholder primacy. It also discusses the importance of corporate law for business development and the importance of corporate influence on sustainable development. The chapter focuses on the EU’s competence for becoming the sustainability leader. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
