University of Georgia School of Law Professor Christopher Bruner presented “Value Chain Due Diligence and Populist Politics” at the University of Turin in Italy earlier this month. The seminar was co-hosted by the Department of Law and the Department of Economics and Statistics, with Roberto Caranta, Professor, Department of Law, and David Monciardini, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Statistics, serving as discussants. The audience included faculty and Ph.D. students.
Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
We at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center are pleased to welcome a new Visiting Research Scholar: Johan Van den Cruijce (LL.M. ’94), Managing Director, Atlas Services Belgium (Orange group) in Brussels, Belgium. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Vlerick Business School (Belgium) and holds dual Ph.D.s in Applied Economics from the KU Leuven and Ghent University. His work focuses on the intersection of law, economics, and corporate finance—especially on how control rights and marketability restrictions affect the valuation of privately held firms.
Dr. Van den Cruijce brings over 25 years of international executive experience in governance, finance and law. He serves as Managing Director at Atlas Services Belgium (Orange group), where he is responsible for the global network of holding companies across Europe and the United States. His work includes M&A, corporate restructuring, treasury and tax strategy, and legal oversight of listed and unlisted entities. He also holds executive and non-executive directorships in Orange group companies in several countries (including Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, the U.K. and the U.S.).
Dr. Van den Cruijce has presented at leading international conferences and his academic research has been published in reputable peer reviewed journals. His recent work explores valuation discounts in illiquid markets, the legal-economic role of control in private firms, and the implications of corporate structure on firm value.
He is an alumnus of the University of Georgia School of Law and also holds an MBA degree from the KU Leuven and a law degree from the University of Antwerp. He has completed executive education programs at, amongst others, INSEAD, IESE Business School, London Business School, and Vlerick Business School.
Dr. Van den Cruijce is sponsored as a Visiting Research Scholar by Georgia Law Professor Christopher Bruner, Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law & Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Christopher Bruner presented the keynote address for a symposium titled “Sustainability is (Still) Possible! Governing Market Actors for a Safe and Just Space” at the University of Turin (Italy) in September. Bruner’s keynote was titled “Corporate Sustainability and Anti-ESG Backlash” and the symposium was co-sponsored by Turin’s Department of Law and Department of Economics and Statistics.
Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
Bruner’s chapter builds on ideas he presented in 2023 at a conference hosted by the University of Macerata in Italy.
Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
Christopher M. Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Sarah Dadush, Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, who presented her working paper, “Shared Responsibility in Contract Law.” Professor Christopher Bruner, Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at Georgia Law, served as her faculty discussant. Dadush’s presentation marks the conclusion of the 2025 International Law Colloquium.
Dadush’s scholarly focus lies in business and human rights, consumer law, and social enterprise law. She also serves as the Director of the Responsible Contracting Project (RCP), a project designed to advocate for human rights and environmental due diligence in contract drafting. The RCP is located within the Rutgers Law School’s Center for Corporate Law and Governance.
Below is an abstract of Dadush’s working paper:
At first, the notion that there is such a thing as shared responsibility in American contract law may sound fanciful, if not absurd. A key reason why parties contract in the first place is to allocate risks and responsibilities between them and to clarify who must do what to move the collaboration forward. As such, contractual obligations are understood to be binary, belonging either to one party or the other, not both. In practice, this means that, if there is a breach, only the obligated party will be held responsible, not both. And, if remedies are awarded, they will flow only from the breaching to the non-breaching party, not between them. Thus, the notion that the parties might be contractually responsible not just for their own obligations, but also for those of their counterparty, seems incoherent.
And yet, as this Article shows, it is not uncommon for courts to go beyond the express terms of the contract to make the parties share responsibility for the performance of one another’s obligations. Thus shared responsibility: Each party is held responsible for the other’s contractual (non)performance, even in the absence of an express commitment to share responsibility for performance.
This Article “goes fishing” for shared responsibility in three key areas of contract law: The contents of the contract, breach, and remedies. It demonstrates that shared responsibility is brought to bear to resolve contract disputes more often and with greater legal effect than the simple, binary understanding of contract might predict. When it enters the judicial analysis, shared responsibility can drastically change the answers to the questions: Who had the obligation to perform? Who breached? And, finally, whose harm should be remedied and how?
Having shown that shared responsibility is already a prominent, if overlooked, feature of American contract law, this Article argues that, in certain situations, courts should employ shared responsibility as a default rule. Specifically, courts should employ a shared responsibility default (SRD) when the contract was breached, or otherwise failed, and (1) both parties contributed to the failure, and (2) the failure could, or has already, generated high social costs (e.g., public endangerment, human rights violations in supply chains, consumer deception). In such situations, the SRD would activate the tort law principles of comparative negligence and proximate cause in contract, holding both parties accountable for their respective contributions to the contract’s failure and related social costs. In doing so, the SRD would equip courts to resolve contract disputes in a manner that attends to both contract policy and public policy objectives.
This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq led the colloquium, which was designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.
This program w made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Christopher M. Bruner presented on a panel titled “Sustainability and Emerging Markets” at the “Corporate Governance in the Global South” roundtable hosted by George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. The panel was moderated by Rosa Celorio, Associate Dean for International and Comparative Legal Studies and Burnett Family Distinguished Professorial Lecturer in International and Comparative Law and Policy at George Washington University Law School.
Christopher M. Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
University of Georgia School of Law Christopher M. Bruner was featured by the “Dare to Know!” podcast in March. The episode, titled “Re-Conceptualizing the Corporation: A New Approach,” focused on Bruner’s 2022 Oxford University Press book, The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future. The interview was conducted by Fabian Corver, a PhD student in philosophy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. His scholarship focuses on corporate law, corporate governance, comparative law and sustainability.
This paper provides an in-depth insight into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. The Adoption Readiness Working Group’s proposed implementation of the Sustainability Reporting in Nigeria would mandate ESG reporting. This paper also contrasts Nigeria’s reporting standards and regulations with those of other African nations, including Ghana, South Africa, and Egypt. It aims to provide a better understanding of ESG reporting in Africa, which would help investors and partners intending to invest in Africa.
exchange of notes 