LSE Law School has a long tradition of producing leading and agenda-setting scholarship in the fields of corporate law and governance, insolvency, financial law, and financial regulation. Eminent commercial lawyers who have, in the past, taught at the LSE include Lord Wright, Lord Chorley, Professor Lord Wedderburn, Professor Paul Davies QC, Professor Sarah Worthington QC. Current faculty members continue this distinguished tradition by providing academic and policy leadership in relation to the most timely and challenging legal questions raised by the financial system and by corporate law and governance. A selection of faculty publications can be found below. Full bibliographies, details of research interests and external appointments are available for each faculty member by following the links to staff webpages.
Faculty members are routinely engaged in research projects and policy initiatives at national and international level on the most timely of questions, which underline the influence of LSE scholarship on this dynamic area of legal and regulatory reform. For example: Professor Niamh Moloney’s external appointments include acting as Special Adviser to the major 2014-15 inquiry by the UK House of Lords EU Select Committee into the EU’s regulatory response to the financial crisis, which reported in February 2015; Dr Philipp Paech is a consultant for the European Central Bank; Sarah Paterson is a member of the Executive Committee of the Secured Transactions Law Reform Project; Dr Eva Micheler is a member of the Investor Protection and Intermediaries Standing Committee at the European Securities Markets Authority; Dr Carsten Gerner-Beuerle, Edmund-Philipp Schuster and Dr Philipp Paech prepared a report on Directors’ Duties and Liabilities for the European Commission; Dr Jo Braithwaite has co-authored a Bank of England Financial Stability paper on defaults within financial market infrastructure, and Professor Michael Bridge has been a member of a wide variety of working groups and advisory bodies in the areas of secured transactions and international sale of goods law. Faculty members also embrace interdisciplinary scholarship, such as the work of Professor David Kershaw and Edmund-Philipp Schuster on corporate governance with LSE’s Financial Markets Group: Corporate Governance at LSE, and as evidenced by Dr Eva Micheler and Professor Julia Black’s appointments as Co-investigators and Programme Directors at the LSE Systemic Risk Centre, where Dr Jo Braithwaite is also a Research Associate
The law school regularly hosts distinguished visiting academics from institutions all over the world who are researching in the areas of corporate, financial and insolvency law, and this greatly contributes to LSE research. It also organises, together with the University of Oxford, an annual Law and Finance conference. LSE Law School hosts the Law and Financial Markets Project which, through events and research projects, brings together academics and practitioners and enables them to exchange ideas about key aspects of financial law. Faculty also work closely with other research centres and departments within LSE, for example, the LSE Systemic Research Centre and the Financial Markets Group.
An innovative and extensive teaching programme is offered in this area, which directly draws on faculty research and expertise. The law school offers a range of research-led corporate and financial law modules on our degree programmes, and several successful PhDs in this area have been completed by our research students (see PhD completions). There are regular evening seminars in this area, including those specially tailored for LLM students, often focusing on topical case studies in corporate and financial law. Alumni from our degree programmes have gone on to hold senior positions in banks, law firms, financial regulators and governments worldwide, and we encourage them to come back to LSE to share their insights and expertise with staff and current students.
Faculty
Professor Joanna Benjamin (Emeritus Professor)
Professor Julia Black
Dr Jo Braithwaite
Professor Michael Bridge KC (Emeritus Professor)
Sir Ross Cranston
Professor Vanessa Finch (Emeritus Professor)
Dr Elizabeth Howell
Ciara Hurley (LSE Fellow)
Professor David Kershaw
Professor Eva Micheler
Professor Niamh Moloney
Dr Philipp Paech
Ms Sarah Paterson
Dr Ian Roxan
Mr Edmund-Philipp Schuster
Dr Joseph Spooner
Professor Dame Sarah Worthington
Visiting faculty
Jonathan Fisher KC (Visiting Professor)
Shimizu visiting professors
The academics listed below have visited the law school as Shimizu Visiting Professors in previous sessions:
Professor William Bratton
Professor Chris Brummer
Professor Guido Ferrarini
Research Students
Omotola Ariyo
Roberto Russo
Recent publications
- Sarah Paterson 'Selective Corporate Restructuring Strategy' 19 October 2022 Modern Law Review online first (with Adrian Walters)
- Niamh Moloney 'Financial Services and Brexit: Unfinished Business for the UK and EU' in F Fabrinni (ed), The Framework of EU UK Relations (Oxford University Press, 2021) 115
- Eva Micheler 'Investor capitalism, sustainable investment and the role of tax relief'European Business Organization Law Review (2022) 23 (1). 217 - 239 (with Katelouzou, Dionysia)
- J. Braithwaite and D. Murphy, 'Client Clearing in the EU: Challenges and Policy Responses in OTC Derivatives Client Clearing' in Jens-Hinrich Binder and Paolo Saguato (eds.) Financial Market Infrastructures: Law and Regulation (OUP, 2021)
- Joseph Spooner 'The Local Austere Creditor' in Saul Schwartz (ed.), Oppressed by Debt: Government and the Justice System as a Creditor of the Poor (Routledge 2022)
- Eva Micheler 'The No-Look-Through Principle: Investor Rights, Distributed Ledger Technology, and the Market'LSE Legal Studies Working Paper No. 11/2021
- Sarah Paterson 'Wither Principle in English Corporate Restructuring Law?' 36(5) May 2021 Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law 322
- Sarah Paterson 'The Analytical Boundary Between Corporate Reorganisation and Sale in Corporate Bankruptcy Theory' in Paul J Omar and Jennifer L L Gant (eds) Research Handbook on Corporate Restructuring (Edward Elgar 2021)
- David Kershaw 'Delaware’s Fiduciary Imagination: Going Privates and Lord Eldon’s Reprise' (2021) Washington University Law Review 98 (6) 1669-1730
- Edmund-Philipp Schuste, David Kershaw, 'Managerial Insulation and Bank Failures' (2021) Journal of Financial Intermediation 100909 (with Daniel Ferreira and Tom Kirchmaier) (an earlier version of the paper is available here)
- Edmund-Philipp Schuster 'Cloud Crypto Land' (2020) 84 Modern Law Review pp.974-1004
- Elizabeth Howell, ‘Brexit, Covid-19, and Possible Frameworks for Future UK/EU Financial Governance Cooperation’Modern Law Review (online first)
- Elizabeth Howell, ‘Post-‘Brexit’ Financial Governance: Which Dispute Settlement Framework Should be Utilised?’ (2020) 83 Modern Law Review 128-162
- Elizabeth Howell, 'Post-‘Brexit’ UK Fund Regulation: Equivalence, Divergence or Convergence?' (2020) 21 European Business Organisation Law Review 611-639
- Niamh Moloney, ‘Financial Services under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement: Reflections on Unfinished Business for the EU and UK’, Brexit Institute Working Paper Series No 3/2021
- Niamh Moloney, ‘The EU Capital Market: a project for the next thirty years’ in D Chad, E Heins and D Scott (eds), European Futures: Challenges and Crossroads for the European Union of 2050 (Routledge, 2021) 21
- Niamh Moloney, ‘Banking Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights’ in C Ziloli and K-P Wojcek (eds), Judicial Review and the European Banking Union (Elgar, 2021) 209
- Niamh Moloney, ‘EU Financial Market Governance and the Covid-19 Crisis’ (with Pierre-Henri Conac) 17 European Company and Financial Law Review (2020) 363
- Niamh Moloney, ‘Reflections on ESMA at a Crossroads’ in Festschrift for Professor Klaus Hopt on his 80th Birthday (de Gruyter, 2020) 779
- Jo Braithwaite The Financial Courts: Adjudicating Disputes in Derivatives Markets (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
- Joseph Spooner ‘Austerity and financial safety nets: bankruptcy abuse prevention and bank protection in Irish post-crisis policy?’ in Jodi Gardner, Mia Gray, and Katharina Moser (eds.), Debt and Austerity: Implications of the Financial Crisis (Elgar 2020)
- Sarah Paterson, Corporate Reorganization Law and Forces of Change (OUP, 2020)
- Niamh Moloney ‘Reflections on the EU Third Country Regime for Capital Markets in the Shadow of Brexit’ 17 European Company and Financial Law Review (2020) 35
- Niamh Moloney ‘Close Cooperation: the SSM Institutional Framework and Lessons from the ESAs’ in Building Bridges: central banking in an interconnected world - proceedings of the 2019 ECB Legal Conference (ECB, 2019) 296
- Sarah Paterson 'The Rise of Covenant-lite Lending and Implications for the UK's Corproate Insolvency Law Toolbox' (2019) 39(3) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 654
- Elizabeth Howell ‘Post-‘Brexit’ Financial Governance: Which Dispute Settlement Framework Should be Utilised?’Modern Law Review (2019)
- Jo Braithwaite 'Improving resolvability: partial property transfers and central counterparties'Capital Markets Law Journal (2019) (with David Murphy)
- Joseph Spooner 'Bankruptcy Policy in a Dematerialised Insolvency Law: Glimpses of a Hidden System' (2019) 32 (1) Insolvency Intelligence, 30-37
- Sarah Paterson 'Market Organisations and Institutions in America and England: Valuation in Corporate Bankruptcy' 93 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 801 (2018)
- Sarah Paterson 'Reflections on English Schemes of Arrangement in Distress and Suggestions for Reform' European Company and Financial Law Review, Volume 15, Issue 3 2018
- Niamh Moloney 'Capital Markets Union, Third Countries and Equivalence: Law, Markets and Brexit' in D Busch, E Avgouleas, and G Ferrarini (eds), Capital Markets Union in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2018) 97
- Niamh Moloney The Age of ESMA. Governing EU Financial Markets (Hart Publishing, 2018)
- Jo Braithwaite 'Thirty years of ultra vires: Local authorities, national courts and the global derivatives markets' (2018) Current Legal Problems (OUP)
- Joseph Spooner 'The Quiet‐Loud‐Quiet Politics of Post‐Crisis Consumer Bankruptcy Law: The Case of Ireland and the Troika' (2018) 81 (5) Modern Law Review 790-824
- David Kershaw 'The Foundations of Anglo-American Corporate Fiduciary Law'LSE Law Working Papers 15/2018
- Thomas Poole 'Independent Fiscal Institutions in Comparative Constitutional Perspective'LSE Law Working Papers 12/2018 (with Cal Viney)
- Niamh Moloney 'Brexit and Financial Services: (yet] another re-ordering of institutional governance for the EU financial system' (2018) 55 Common Market Law Review 175
- Sarah Paterson 'Finding our way: secured transactions and corporate bankruptcy law and policy in America and England'Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2018) (online first)
- Edmund Philipp-Schuster 'Cross-border reincorporations in the European Union: the case for comprehensive harmonisation' Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2018) 18 (1) pp.1-42 (with Carsten Gerner-Beuerle, Federico M. Mucciarelli, and Mathias Siems)
- Professor Sir Ross Cranston Principles of Banking Law, 3rd edition (OUP, 2018) (with Emilios Avgouleas, Kristin van Zwieten, Christopher Hare, Theodor van Sante)
- Niamh Moloney (with Kern Alexander, Catherine Barnard, Eilis Ferran and Andrew Lang) Brexit and Financial Services: Law and Policy (Hart Publishing, 2018)
- 'The Governance of Blockchain Financial Networks'Modern Law Review (2017) 80 (6) pp.1073-1110
- Joseph Spooner 'Seeking Shelter in Personal Insolvency Law: Recession, Eviction and Bankruptcy’s Social Safety Net' (2017) Journal of Law and Society 44 (3) pp. 374–405
- Daniel Ferreira, David Kershaw, Tom Kirchmaier and Edmund Schuster 'Measuring Management Insulation from Shareholder Pressure' LSE Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 01-2016
- David Kershaw Principles of Takeover Regulation by David Kershaw (Oxford University Press, 2016)
- Eva Micheler 'Resaleable debt and systemic risk' (2016) Discussion Paper Series, 53. London School of Economics and Political Science, Systemic Risk Centre, LSE (with Jason Donaldson)
- Eva Micheler 'Building a Capital Markets Union: Improving the Market Infrastructure' European Business Organisation Law Review (2016) 17 (4) pp.481-495
- Philipp Paech 'The Value of Insolvency Safe Harbours'LSE Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 09-2015. Forthcoming in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1-2016
- Philipp Paech 'Securities, intermediation and the blockchain - an inevitable choice between liquidity and legal certainty?'LSE Law and Economy Working Paper Series 20/2015
- Jo Braithwaite 'The Dilemma of Client Clearing in the OTC Derivatives Markets'European Business Organization Law Review (2016)
- Jo Braithwaite and David Murphy 'Got to be certain: The legal framework for CCP default management processes' (2016) Bank of England Financial Stability Paper 37
- Jo Braithwaite and David Murphy 'Central Counterparties (CCPs) and the law of default management' Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2016)
- Dalia Palombo, 'Chandler v. Cape: An Alternative to Piercing the Corporate Veil Beyond Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell' (2015) 4(1) British Journal of American Legal Studies, pp. 453-471
- David Kershaw 'Corporate Law and Self-Regulation' LSE Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 05-2015
- David Kershaw ‘The Rule in Foss v Harbottle is Dead; Long Live the Rule in Foss v Harbottle'Journal of Business Law (2015) (3) pp.274-302
- Eva Micheler 'Custody chains and asset values: why crypto-securities are worth contemplating' Cambridge Law Journal (2015) 74 (3) pp.505-533
- Solene Rowan 'Conditions – Art 5.3.1-5.3.5' in S Vogenauer (ed), Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (Oxford University Press, 2015).
- Philipp Paech 'The Value of Insolvency Safe Harbours'LSE Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 09-2015. Forthcoming in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1-2016
- David Kershaw and Dan Awrey ‘Towards a More Ethical Culture in Finance: Regulatory and Governance Strategies’ (with Dan Awrey) in Capital Failure: Rebuilding Trust in Financial Services (2014, Oxford University Press) 277-304
- Eva Micheler 'Intermediated Securities and Legal Certainty' LSE Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 03-2014