Socially Responsible Investment

Socially Responsible Investment

1st Edition

Author:

ISBN: 1 901614 24 7

Publication date: 23/06/2005

Price: £45.00

Topics Covered :
Socially Responsible Investment: A Guide For Pension Schemes and Charities
By Professor Paul Palmer, Jane Whitfield, Robert Meakin & Charles Scanlan. Editor: Charles Scanlan

Increasingly, institutional trustees have to resolve when and how to take social responsibility into account when determining their investment policy.

Socially Responsible Investment presents charity and pension scheme trustees with both opportunities and potential pitfalls which they cannot ignore.

This book is a comprehensive guide which describes the development and current scope of SRI and explains the legal principles which should guide trustees and their advisers in their approach to this important subject.

Comments :
The book contains four chapters and the areas covered include:

Chapter 1: Socially Responsible Investment (Professor Paul Palmer)

* Social and historical context
* Defining SRI: key issues
* Measuring and determining an SRI policy
* The case for SRI
* Future developments

Chapter 2: Trustees’ Investment Duties (Jane Whitfield)

* Fiduciary powers: general principles
* The common law “ordinary prudent man of business” rule
* The American “prudent investor” rule
* Special duties of charity trustees
* Charity Commission Guidance

Chapter 3: Socially Responsible Investment By Charities (Robert Meakin)

* Trustee Act 2000: the statutory duty of care
* The leading cases on SRI: practical implications
* Preserving a charity’s good name
* Corporate governance and product endorsement
* SRI as an instrument of political change

Chapter 4: Socially Responsible Investment By Pension Schemes (Charles Scanlan)

* Pensions Act 1995: the SRI regulations
* Financial and non-financial “benefit”
* Cowan v Scargill revisited
* Shareholder activism and the Myners Report
* Pensions Act 2004: trustee “knowledge and understanding”

The book also includes the “Just Pensions” survey “Do UK Pension Funds Invest Responsibly?”, first published in 2002, with an update by the editor.


Publisher Details :
Paul Palmer is Professor of Voluntary Sector Management at Sir John Cass Business School, City University. He has extensive knowledge of charity financial, management and governance issues. Paul is a member of the Charity Commission’s SORP Committee and a research adviser to the Charity Commission.

He is an independent expert on charity dispute issues for courts and arbitration. Paul has made television and radio appearances on charity issues and is a writer on “practitioner” how to do books on charity finance and websites.

Jane Whitfield is a private client solicitor with Thompson Snell & Passmore in Tunbridge Wells and a part-time PhD student in charity law at the University of Dundee. She is a member of the Law Society’s Wills & Equity Committee and an active participant in its working party on the Charities Bill. Jane is also Treasurer of the Christian Ethical Investment Group and a director of “Hope in the Community”, a registered charity established to provide an umbrella of support for faith and community groups wishing to engage in regeneration projects.

Robert Meakin is a partner in the London office of Stone King, having previously been a lawyer with the Charity Commission. He is an advisory board member of the European Association for Planned Giving and an Honorary Fellow in Charity Law at Sir John Cass Business School, City University.

Robert is the author of “Charity in the NHS: Policy and Practice” (Jordans, 1998) and contributed to “Charities, Governance and the Law: The Way Forward” (Key Haven, 2003).

Charles Scanlan is a retired partner of Simmons & Simmons, where he was Head of the Pensions Group. He has over twenty-five years’ experience in the practice of pensions law. Charles was editor and co-author of “Pensions: The New Regime –A Guide to the Pensions Act and its Regulations” (Sweet & Maxwell, 1998) and a contributor to “The Law of Pension Schemes” (Sweet & Maxwell).