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Author	Dr Anuradha Roy Chowdhury
Organisation/Institution	The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
Country	INDIA
Panel	Corporate Law and Governance
Title	Consumers in Corporate Governance: Stakeholderism, Purpose and Law
Abstract	Stakeholderism is here to stay. The impact of stakeholders on corporate governance has been debated for some time. The advocates for Stakeholderism have framed their arguments in many ways, most recently in the corporate purpose debate. Regulators in many jurisdictions, including India, have also considered the role of stakeholders in corporate law and governance through the pluralist and enlightened shareholder value model. This paper makes three claims. Firstly, that the corporate purpose debate is akin to the ESV model, i.e., a watered-down version of stakeholderism. Secondly, stakeholderism is often seen as part of decision-making by boards, rendering stakeholderism a discretion; this paper contends that company and securities law may be more successful in addressing stakeholder concerns. The third and central argument of the paper is that both literature and regulation has tended to “lump” stakeholders into one category causing detriment to stakeholderism as a concept as well as its implementation in law. This paper identifies consumers as an integral stakeholder of the company who are affected by and can affect the company, and assesses the protection that consumers receive as stakeholder under corporate law and governance. The paper ends with providing recommendations for the strengthening the same.
Biography	Anuradha Roy Chowdhury is Assistant Professor of Corporate Laws at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS). She is an alumnus of King’s College London (LLB) and University College London (LLM). She completed her PhD Thesis entitled ‘Corporate Governance in India- Is Regulation the Solution?’ in 2019 and was awarded her degree by the WBNUJS in 2020. Her research interests lie in corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions and corporate social responsibility and she has published on the same in national and international journals. She was ASLI Fellow at the National University Singapore between 1.10.2024 and 30.10.2024.