Centre of Innovation Research Seminar: The dark side of innovation in financial centres: legal bricolage and territorialities of law

Abstract:
Innovation studies rarely incorporate finance in their analysis, although productive innovation and economic development require efficient allocation of financial resources. However, complex financial vehicles other than banks are increasingly financing global economic activity. These financial entities have an innovative, yet ‘dark’ side, as they do not only help finance the decarbonisation of our economies and societies. Rather, these vehicles are increasingly the result of ongoing legal bricolage, helping to create private rather than public wealth, and to shield it. This dark, yet innovative, part of finance therefore contributes to cementing social and spatial inequalities. In this seminar, I illustrate how legal structuring (in tandem with creative auditing for that matter) benefits (from) macro-conditions such as the ongoing commercialisation of state sovereignty but also the fine-tuned work of finance-cum-law that have long shaped the business model of leading financial centres. This is a legacy that is difficult to disengage from in times of sustainability imperatives, especially under the aegis of just and inclusive new green deals.