Brussels, 15 January 2002.

The European Corporate Governance Institute was successfully launched at La Maison de l'Europe at the Bibliothèque Solvay before an audience of over 200, drawn from companies, the European Institutions, national governments, Corporate Governance committees, institutional investors, academics and the press.

The Chairman of the ECGI, Antonio Borges, introduced the event and explained the reasons behind the formation of this new European Institute against a background the complexities of corporate governance in Europe.

André Sapir of the European Commission and the Centre for Economic Policy Research made a presentation of some recent research amongst FT Europe 500 Companies to determine how international are the boards of Europe's largest multinational companies. Click here to view the slides used in this presentation.

Marco Becht, Executive Director of the ECGI, presented the outline findings of recent research which appeared in The Control of Corporate Europe which he co-edited. A complimentary copy of this book, published by Oxford University Press, was given to everyone who attended, courtesy of Chubb Insurance Company of Europe S.A. Click here to view the slides used in this presentation.

There followed a debate on the topic "Do Large Shareholders make for Good Corporate Governance?" led by a panel comprising Erik Berglöf (Stockholm School of Economics & ECGI), François Henrot (General Partner, Rothschild & Cie Banque), Colin Mayer (Saïd Business School Oxford & ECGI), and Jaap Peters (Chairman, Dutch Corporate Governance Foundation).

After a considerable number of incisive and interesting questions from the floor to which the panel responded, the Chairman drew the proceedings to a close and invited the audience to join him and the board of the ECGI to celebrate the Institute's launch at a cocktail reception.

See also timetable for the event