From Environmental to Human Rights Business Collaboration—a Competition Law Lens

Event Details

A joint event by BIICL's HRDD Forum, Competition Law Forum and the Bingham Centre's Business Network.

Concerns of breaching competition law is often raised by companies as a barrier for collaboration with peers and value chain actors on ESG issues, particularly in relation to human rights. These concerns have been increasing amidst the current anti-ESG movement in the US and the changing human rights landscape in the EU. At the same time, human rights due diligence expectations on businesses that operate across jurisdictions are increasing.

This panel event brings together experts in competition law, human rights due diligence, and business actors, to discuss business collaboration on human rights issues, including but not limited to collecting and sharing human rights data (e.g., human rights impact assessments/ supplier questionnaires), remediation of human rights violations such as recruitment fees, and building capacity of shared suppliers, while complying with competition law. Learnings and lessons from the more developed field of business collaboration on environmental issues and competition law will be discussed. Business collaboration in the intersection between social and environmental issues, for example to address extreme heat and workers' rights, will also be discussed.

This event will provide a deeper understanding of the importance of collaboration and the challenges and opportunities of doing so in compliance with competition law and within a shifting human rights and environmental landscape.

Speakers:

• George Barker, BIICL
• Emma Griffiths, Rolls-Royce
  
• Ingrid Gubbay, Hausfeld
  
• Simon Holmes, University of Oxford
  
• Tim Johnston, Brick Court Chambers
  
• Marie Rumsby, Fair Trade

View the full Agenda

Convenors:

• Dr Irene Pietropaoli, Senior Fellow in Business and Human Rights, BIICL, and Director of the Human Rights Due Diligence Forum.
• Dr Sofia Gonzalez De Aguinaga, Research Leader in Business, ESG and Modern Slavery, BIICL, coordinator of the Bingham Centre Business Network and project partner, Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre.
• Phil Evans, Co-Director of the Competition Law Forum.

 
Registration

This is a closed event, open only to members of BIICL HRDD Forum, Competition Law Forum and the Bingham Centre's Business Network.