EU still needs to strike the right balance between hard law and softer principles

In May, the Latvian EU Presidency organized the 16th CG Conference entitled “Corporate Governance – a tool to increase competitiveness in the digital era”.

The overriding message from the participants was that the regulatory pendulum in the world of corporate governance seems to have swung too far in the direction of hard law. So, in the interests of achieving greater competitiveness and treating corporate governance as a driver of growth the EU needs to focus on the following areas:

• Flexibility versus harmonization
• Rules versus principles
• Efficiency versus fairness
• Scrutiny versus interference