Wydział Prawa i Administracji Uniwersytet Warszawski

Crowdfunding has transformed how businesses raise capital, offering an accessible alternative to traditional financing. Equity crowdfunding, in particular, allows individuals to invest in ventures with potential financial returns. While this model fosters innovation and democratizes investment opportunities, it exposes investors to significant risks, such as inaccurate stock valuation, misleading advertising, capital dilution, and limited regulatory oversight. The lack of robust legal protections can leave investors vulnerable to fraud and financial losses.

This project explores the legal and regulatory challenges of equity crowdfunding, aiming to strike a balance between investor protection and market growth. By examining regulatory frameworks in Poland, the EU, and major global markets, it seeks to identify legal solutions that enhance security without stifling innovation. The findings will contribute to shaping policies that safeguard investors while allowing crowdfunding to remain a viable tool for entrepreneurship and economic development.

In light of the newest evidence from the natural sciences, human-induced climate change is increasingly being understood as the defining global challenge of our age. This has unleashed a profound societal and cultural transformation process – a sustainability revolution – which calls into question many basic organizing principles of economic activity.

In particular, notions on the role of companies within society are progressively being challenged. Climate policy ranks high on today’s global political agendas. International commitments like the Paris Climate Agreement or the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development shape the global course of sustainability policy. In the EU, alongside treaty-based obligations, the European Green Deal, with its climate neutrality commitment, sets the blueprint.

Companies are naturally at the centre of lawmakers’ attention. Their essential part in mitigating climate change by reducing their net emissions and by driving the innovation and adaptation that are necessary to bring about a net-zero economy is widely recognized. In the search for adequate policy mechanisms, the question of the role of corporate governance in the aspired transition toward sustainable capitalism is highly pertinent.

Whereas public law instruments, for example, direct regulatory controls on emissions or market solutions, have a long-standing tradition of serving as policy instruments for protecting the environment, most recent developments are increasingly emphasizing the role of private law, particularly company law, in implementing sustainability-driven policy goals. Fundamentally, a stronger responsibilization of companies for meeting sustainability objectives is being pursued. Consequently, the question arises whether company law institutions could reshape corporate governance frameworks to align companies’ conduct with climate policy objectives. ‘Corporate sustainability’ is the flag under which the emerging debate sails.