Corporate Power and the Politics of Change: Corporate Governing, ESG, and the EU–U.S. Divide

The Harvard European Law Association is pleased to host a lunch talk on Wednesday, April 8, from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. in Hauser Hall 102 on “Corporate Power and the Politics of Change: Corporate Governing, ESG, and the EU–U.S. Divide“.

Over the past decade, corporations have moved into spaces traditionally occupied by public institutions—setting standards on climate, labor, and social policy, taking public positions on contested issues, and at times substituting for stalled democratic governance. Corporate Power and the Politics of Change develops a framework for understanding this phenomenon—what is also referred to as corporate governing—as both a response to political paralysis and a source of new institutional and democratic risk. This panel uses the book as a starting point for a transatlantic conversation. It examines why the United States and the European Union have responded so differently to the rise of corporate power, and what those divergent paths reveal about law, legitimacy, and the limits of delegation to private actors.

Matteo Gatti, Rutgers Law School / ECGI

Matteo Gatti is a professor of law at Rutgers Law School and a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. His work sits at the intersection of corporate law, financial regulation, and political economy, with a particular focus on corporate power, governance structures, and the interaction between firms, markets, and public institutions. He holds degrees from the University of Milan (J.D., summa cum laude), Harvard Law School (LL.M.), and the University of Brescia (S.J.D.), and has worked in private legal practice and in-house counsel roles in multiple jurisdictions on corporate and M&A matters.

His scholarly work has been published or accepted for publication in leading journals, including the Stanford Law Review, Journal of Corporation Law, BYU Law Review, North Carolina Law Review,Columbia Law Review Forum, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, and the European Business Organization Law Review. His research has been cited in major treatises and regulatory reviews, including by the European Commission. He is the author of two books, including Corporate Power and the Politics of Change (Cambridge University Press, 2026).

Gatti has held visiting appointments and fellowships at institutions including Goethe University Frankfurt and Harvard Law School, and lectures and presents regularly around the world. His work and commentary regularly appear in academic and policy forums such as the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, the CLS Blue Sky Blog, the Oxford Business Law Blog, and Jotwell, as well as in mainstream outlets including the Financial Times, CNN Business, Forbes, and Law360. He is admitted to the New York Bar.

Roy Shapira, Reichman University / visiting Harvard Law School / ECGI

Roy Shapira is Senior Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on Corporate Governance, a Mehrotra Visiting Professor at BU Business, Professor of Law at Reichman University, and Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute. Shapira’s work focuses on corporate governance, reputation, corporate law litigation and economic regulation. He received his LLM and SJD degrees from Harvard Law School, and has taught at Harvard Economics Department and Berkeley Law. Prior to joining academia Shapira worked as a litigator and a reputation consultant.

Giacomo Gattinara, Fletcher School – European Commission

Giacomo Gattinara is EU Fellow and Professor of International Trade law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and a Member of the Legal Service of the European Commission, which he represented in more than 700 cases before the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union. He holds a PhD in International public law and EU law from the Law Faculty of the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome, an LL M and a MA in EU competition law from the King’s College of London, an LL M in EU law from the College of Europe (Brugge) and a D.e.s.s. en contentieux communautaire from the IUIL of Luxembourg and the Robert Schuman University of Strasbourg. He is a fully qualified lawyer in Italy (‘avvocato’) since 2012 and is a former ‘référendaire’ at the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (chambers of Judge Mengozzi).

Roberto Tallarita, Harvard Law School

Roberto Tallarita is an Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Before being named an assistant professor, he served as a Lecturer on Law, Associate Director of the Program on Corporate Governance, and Terence M. Considine Senior Fellow in Law and Economics. He teaches and writes on corporate law and governance, and on the political and moral dimensions of markets and corporations.

Professor Tallarita’s current and recent research focuses on corporate law theory, the corporate governance of AI, ESG and corporate purpose, corporate political spending, and CEO political preferences. His academic papers appear or are forthcoming in the Business Lawyer, Cornell Law Review, Harvard Business Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, Journal of Corporation Law, Journal of Legal Analysis, Southern California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Yale Journal on Regulation. He has also published articles for a broader audience in The Atlantic, the Boston Review, and the Harvard Business Review. His research has been featured, among other places, in Bloomberg Opinion, the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Prior to joining Harvard, Professor Tallarita spent more than a decade in private practice, working on transnational corporate deals at leading law firms in Europe and the United States, including as an associate in the corporate and M&A group of Kirkland & Ellis in New York, and as a partner at a leading Italian law firm.

Professor Tallarita has a law degree from the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and a doctorate (SJD) from Harvard Law School.

Lunch will be provided.