The role of the financial advisor is subject to fiduciary duty, which means that the advisor always should act in the best interest of the client and has traditionally referred to the financial aspects. Finance is now experiencing a revolution, where the concept of sustainable finance is on the agenda of many actors when the sustainability amendments to MiFID II entered into force, as part of the EU Action Plan on Sustainable Finance. The new regulations will add to the already intensified information load characterizing the financial advisory landscape. Moreover, this new dimension of sustainability is very different from the strictly financial one, which in itself is subject to both conceptually and operational complexity. This study aims to investigate what difficulties and complexities are arising from the growing amount of sustainability demands and information and how these affect the financial advisor and its role. This was done as a qualitative case study where nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with financial advisors working in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, together with two interviews with employees working with sustainability at a central level in a Nordic bank. The analysis is based on the interviews combined with current literature and together lays the foundation for the findings. The key findings of the study are that there are five identified difficulties stemming from different areas that are seen as important for understanding what the inclusion of sustainability preferences into financial advisory might mean going forward, and what effects that it will have on the financial advisor: (i) regulatory changes and compliance, (ii) sustainability preferences, (iii) the information-intensive landscape, (iv) advisors’ required awareness and knowledge, and (v) the perceived advisor’s role. When adding these identified difficulties together, the conclusion is that the concept of sustainable finance is not as uncomplicated as perhaps portrayed, and this holds extra true for the studied inclusion of sustainability in the advisory process. / Den finansiella rådgivarens roll är föremål för fiduciary duty, vilket innebär att rådgivaren alltid ska agera i kundens bästa och traditionellt har hänvisat till de ekonomiska aspekterna. Finans upplever nu en revolution, där begreppet hållbar ekonomi står på dagordningen för många aktörer när hållbarhetsändringarna till MiFID II trädde i kraft, som en del av EU: s handlingsplan för finansiering av hållbar tillväxt. De nya reglerna kommer att öka den redan intensifierade informationsbelastningen som kännetecknar det finansiella rådgivande landskapet. Dessutom skiljer sig denna nya hållbarhetsdimension mycket från den strikt ekonomiska, som i sig är föremål för både konceptuell och operativ komplexitet. Studien syftar till att undersöka vilka svårigheter och komplexiteter som uppstår till följd av den ökande mängden hållbarhetskrav och information och hur dessa påverkar den finansiella rådgivaren och dess roll. Detta gjordes som en kvalitativ fallstudie där nio semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med finansiella rådgivare som arbetade i Danmark, Finland och Sverige, tillsammans med två intervjuer med anställda som arbetade med hållbarhet på en central nivå i en nordisk bank. Analysen baseras på intervjuerna i kombination med aktuell litteratur och lägger tillsammans grunden för resultaten. De viktigaste resultaten i studien är att det finns fem identifierade svårigheter som härrör från olika områden som ses som viktiga för att förstå vad införandet av hållbarhetspreferenser i finansiell rådgivning kan innebära framöver och vilka effekter det kommer att få för finansiella rådgivare: (i) regeländringar och efterlevnad, (ii) hållbarhetspreferenser, (iii) det informationsintensiva landskapet, (iv) rådgivarnas medvetenhet och kunskap och (v) den upplevda rådgivarens roll. När man sammanställer dessa identifierade svårigheter är slutsatsen att begreppet hållbar ekonomi inte är så okomplicerat som det kanske framställs, och detta gäller extra för den studerade inkluderingen av hållbarhet i rådgivningsprocessen.

This thesis brings together two responses to the question ‘how can the law extend the timeframe for environmentally relevant decision-making?’ The first response is drawn from the context of institutional investment, and addresses the timeframe and breadth of environmental considerations in pension fund investment decision-making. The second response is related to the context of public environmental decision-making by legislators, the judiciary, and administrators. Three themes underlie and bind the thesis: the challenges to decision-making posed by the particular temporal and spatial characteristics of environmental problems, the existence and effects of short-termism in a variety of contexts, and the legal notion of the trust as a means for analysing and addressing problems of a long-term or intergenerational nature. These themes are borne out in each of the four substantive chapters. Chapter III sets out to demonstrate the theoretical potential of pension funds to drive the reduction of firms’ environmental impact, and, focusing particularly on the notion of fiduciary duty, explores the barriers that stand in their way. Chapter IV provides a practical application of the theoretical recommendations outlined in its predecessor. It provides a framework outlining how pension funds might implement a longer term, more sustainable approach to investing. The second half of the thesis, operating in the context of public environmental decision-making, is centred upon a particularly poignant legal notion with respect to the environment and time: the concept of intergenerational equity. Just as the first half of the thesis deals with the timeframes relevant to investment decision-making by pension funds within the bounds of fiduciary duty, largely a private law affair with public implications, the second half of the thesis is concerned with the principle of intergenerational equity as a means for extending the decision-making timeframe of legislative, judicial and administrative decision-makers. As previous analyses of the concept of intergenerational equity provide little insight into its practical implications when applied to particular factual situation, Chapter V sets out the structure of the principle of intergenerational equity as revealed by case law. Chapter VI brings together the issues from the first three papers by conceptualising intergenerational equity in resource management as an issue of long-term investment. Long-term environmental decision-making faces many obstacles. Individual behavioural biases, short-term financial incentive structures, the myopic pressures of the electoral cycle and the tendency of the common law to reinforce the (often shorttermist) status quo all present significant barriers to the capacity of both private and public decision-makers to act in ways that favour the longer term interests of the environment. Nonetheless, this thesis argues that there is reason for hope: drawing upon the three themes that underlie all of the substantive Chapters, it articulates potential legislative changes and recommends the adoption of particular governance structures to overcome barriers to long-term environmental decision-making.

La présente étude a pour objet de montrer que les moyens de la protection des actionnaires minoritaires en droit chinois et en droit français ne sont pas soumis à des critères fondamentalement différents. Dans les sociétés anonymes, les règles juridiques visent à trouver un équilibre des rapports entre les actionnaires majoritaires et minoritaires, ainsi qu’entre les actionnaires et la société ou le groupe de sociétés.C’est l’intérêt social et le principe d’égalité qui guident le législateur et le juge de proposer des solutions convenables.Il importe de noter qu’en droit français, les dispositions sur les responsabilités et les moyens de recours pour les minoritaires sont d’applications faciles qu’en droit chinois. D’ailleurs, la recherche de l’acquisition des sociétés cotées chinoises sous l’angle de la protection des minoritaires, tout à fait différent à l’offre publique en droit français, présente les particularités du marché réglementé chinois et mérite que les investisseurs étrangers découvrent davantage. / The dissertation aimed to point out that the methods of the protection of minority shareholders in Chinese law and in French law are not subject to the different criteria. In company limited by shares, the legal provisions intend to find a balance of relation between majority shareholders and minority shareholders, and between the shareholders and the company or group of company. It is corporate profits and the principal of equality that direct legislators and judges to suggest applicable solutions.It is important to notify that in French law, legal provisions about the responsibility of majority shareholders or company leaders and the ways of resort of minority shareholders provide reference for improvement of Chinese law. Besides, the study of acquisition of chinese listed companies, looked from the angle of the protection of minority shareholders, very different from tender offer in French law, demonstrate the characteristics of Chinese stock market and deserve foreign investors’ enough attention.

員工持股計畫是由財經律師Louis Kelso所創，在美國已行之多年，廣為美國企業所採。最早的員工持股計畫是一種為了和平地從資本家手中移轉資本給員工、縮減貧富差距的工具。為了使這個計畫可以持續有效地運作下去，立法者將員工持股計畫為退休金計畫的一種，使員工必須長期持有股票，直到退休。然而在實務運作上，員工持股信託經常被運用為防止敵意併購的工具。尤有甚者，某些公司內部人會利用員工持股計畫為自己取得大量資金、移轉投資風險,但仍可保留對於公司的控制力。這些行為都有可能對股東及員工造成不利的影響，但在現行法制下，只能仰賴司法者透過判決保護這些經濟及資訊上的弱勢族群。 在台灣，員工持股計畫雖然已廣為許多企業所採用，但是發展了將近20年，只能成為另一種員工持有股票的工具。員工擁有的股票數量並不足以使其在股東會上贏得一個受公司內部人重視的地位，也不足以倚賴這些股票作為退休金之用。這種規模上的差異是台美員工持股計畫最關鍵的不同點。小規模雖然使員工持股計畫帶來的優勢少了許多，但相對地也減低許多代理成本，至今未有員工持股計畫侵害大量員工利益的事件爆發。然而這不表示員工持股計畫在台灣就是個可以被忽略的問題，若能在未來建立一套有效率的立法制度，使員工持股計畫的規模擴大，員工將可因此享受到更多公司盈餘，並且使其退休生活受到保障。相對地，參考美國員工持股計畫的問題後，也可以預先設想未來可能發生的弊端，未雨綢繆。本文相信，一個有效率的員工持股計畫，可以實現解決貧富不均的理想。 / Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) which is created by Louis Kelso is brought to practice for many years. Many enterprises use it as their retirement pension plan. The earliest employee stock ownership plan to transfer the capital frome capitalists to labors and reduce the disparity between the rich and the poor.In order to make the plan work out continueously and effectively, the legislator devise ESOP as a pension fund which makes employee own stock chronically until they retires. However, in practice, ESOP is usually exercised for preventing hostile takeover. Moreover, some company insiders may use ESOP TTO get a great deal of capital and transfer the investment risk, but still own the controlling power to their company. This behaviors will cause some harmful effects to the shareholders and the employees, but in the current legal system,the only one we can depend is the judge who can protect the minority in the economic and the information. ESOP is exercised by many enterprises in Taiwan. But after 20 years, it can only become one of the tools which assist employees to acquire company stocks.The number of shares which employees owns can’t make them have a posi-tion which let the company insiders take account in the shareholder committee and have enough amounts for their retirement pensions.This disparity in scale is the keypoint what is different between Tiwan and the U.S. ESOP. Althoygh small scale makes the adventage of ESOP decrease, it reduce lots of agency costs. To this day, there’re not any events which injure the interests of employees by ESOP. Never-theless, it doesn’t mean that ESOP in Taiwan is a issue which can be neglected. If we can establish an efficient legal system and extend the scale of ESOP, employees can obtain more company interests and have a security of their retirement life.In the opposite, after researching the problem of the U.S. ESOP, we can assume the culpably misconduct which will happen in the future and repair the house before it rains。Ｉ believe that a efficient ESOP can realize the ideal to solve the problem of uneven distribution of the wealth.