Unlike other corporate forms, benefit corporations, in addition to creating shareholder value, are characterized by three basic attributes making them uniquely different and an option that entrepreneurs and investors should consider. Seven states including California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Vermont and Hawaii have enacted legislation to create a for-profit, multi-stakeholder, model corporate form, and several other states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina have introduced similar legislation.
This briefing will address the state law requirements for benefit corporations focusing on the law in California but with the attributes of the laws in the several other states where benefit corporation laws have been enacted to date.
This program will be presented by Partner Jonathan S. Storper, the co-chair of the legal working group which drafted the benefit corporation legislation in California and chair of the Hanson Bridgett's sustainable business practice.
Topics include:
- The general and specific public benefit purposes of a benefit corporation
- Attributes of a multi-stakeholder corporate model
- How the corporation is accountable to its stakeholders and the public
- The assessment and transparency requirements of this corporate form
- How the general and specific public benefit purposes are enforced