Cynthia Williams
Professor Cynthia Williams, the Osler Chair in Business Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, has been invited to lead an interdisciplinary research team to study the Dutch Central Bank (DNB)’s innovative program to observe and evaluate the corporate culture within Dutch banks.
DNB has hired eight organizational psychologists as part of their supervisory staff, as of three years ago, and those psychologists observe board meetings, meetings of the CEOs and other top officers, and conduct interviews of bank employees to evaluate the bank’s culture. DNB has recently expanded its evaluation to pension funds and insurance companies.
“This invitation came about after I spoke to DNB psychologists in November, and based on a paper I co-authored with John Conley, anthropologist and law professor at the University of North Carolina, titled ‘The Social Reform of Banking, which was published in the Journal of Corporation Law,’” Williams said.
In addition, Williams has been invited by the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services to participate in a panel to advise government on priorities to reform Ontario’s corporate and commercial statutes.
The stakeholder panel will include up to 15 lawyers with expertise in corporate and commercial law including private practitioners, general counsel, academics and jurists.
Deloitte is facilitating the panel meetings and will prepare a findings and recommendations report on the panel’s behalf.