Enlightened Shareholder Value Principle in the UK Companies Act 2006: What Lesson for a Legal Approach to CSR in Nigerian?

Abstract

The original emergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a call to companies to consider the interests of their external stakeholders out of charity or philanthropy now reverberates in the context of legal duties of companies’ directors. A foremost effort at achieving the objective of making CSR part of the legal duties of companies’ directors is provided under section 172 of the United Kingdom Companies Act 2006, which provides for the ‘‘enlightened shareholder value’’ principle. This paper critically analyses the statutory enlightened shareholder value principle and determines the purpose, implication, and significance of the principle in relation to a legal approach to CSR in other common law jurisdictions such as Nigeria.

Keywords:Corporate social responsibility, Enlightened shareholder value, Companies Act 2006, duties of directors, Companies Act 2020,

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/138-04

Publication date: December 31^st 2023