International Conflicts of Legal Duties

Multinational Companies between ESG and Anti-ESG Regulation

After years of steady expansion in ESG regulation, the political climate is beginning to shift. In the United States, recent executive actions and legislative proposals—most prominently the ‘Protect USA Act’—signal a strategic power play against the expanding extraterritorial reach of European sustainability rules. Designed as a blocking statute, the Protect USA Act would pressure companies to scale back ESG commitments and even disregard key EU standards, particularly the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

Meanwhile, the EU continues to move forward with the CSDDD, albeit in a more moderate form than originally envisioned. With both frameworks claiming extraterritorial effect, multinational companies could soon find themselves in a regulatory ‘game of chicken’, forced to choose between conflicting legal obligations on either side of the Atlantic.

Nina’s talk will explore how this emerging dilemma affects corporate governance and directors’ duties.

Dr Nina Benz is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg. Her research interests are centred on international company and economic law. Her current research topic is the role of private law in international conflicts of legal duties, with a particular focus on ESG regulation and economic sanctions. She is a Young Marsilius Fellow at the University of Heidelberg.

Nina obtained her PhD from the University of Heidelberg with a research stay at the University of Oxford. She holds law degrees from the University of Oxford (MJur) and the University of Heidelberg. Nina passed the German bar exam (Referendariat) at the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt. She served as a trainee at the European Commission in Brussels and as a law clerk in an international law firm in Sydney. She was a scholar of the German National Scholarship Foundation both during her legal studies and her PhD.