Legal Update

Legal Update / 10.02.2016

In recent years, consumers and investors have demonstrated an increased preference for socially conscious companies. The natural outgrowth of this trend has been the rise of socially conscious companies like Tom's, a shoe company that donates one pair of shoes to those in need for each pair it sells. On January 1, 2016, Indiana entered the fray as the 30th state to enact a benefit corporation statute. Benefit corporations are for-profit corporations formed with the additional purpose of providing a general public benefit. Under the statute, a general public benefit is a benefit creating “material positive impact on society and the environment,” as a whole, through a corporation’s operations.[1] This ambiguous language provides flexibility to benefit corporations that have a variety of benefit interests.