ESCB Legal conference 2024 – Speakers

Programme

Jaap's research explores the critical role of contracts and contract law in driving positive change. At the Montaigne Center for the Rule of Law and Justice, his research focuses on enhancing sustainability in global trade through commercial contracts and empowering consumers in the energy transition through contract design.

Jaap has extensive teaching experience in Europe and the United States, covering contract law, private law theory, commercial arbitration, and corporate social responsibility. He held visiting positions at institutions like Columbia Law School and the National University of Singapore. Additionally, he has delivered guest lectures at Yale and Princeton, among others.

Jaap's international work appears in journals like the Harvard International Law Journal and King's Law Journal and in books published by Oxford University Press and Kluwer Law International. His approach blends legal theory with quantitative research, political theory, social sciences, and philosophy of language.

Before joining the ECB’s Legal Services he worked at the European Commission. He holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute in Florence, LLM degrees from the King’s College London and the Université Saint-Louis in Brussels and a degree in Law from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid.

He is furthermore a visiting lecturer at the Université Catholique de Lille. He has published on institutional and administrative aspects of EU law. His recent publications include an analysis of the principle of financial independence and it implications for euro area central banks and an assessment of the compatibility of the Spanish windfall levy on credit institutions with EU law.

He holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute (Florence) and an LL.M. from the College of Europe (Bruges). He teaches EU law at Université Libre de Bruxelles and for many years he was a visiting professor at Sciences Po in Paris.

From 2000 to 2004 he was a référendaire at the European Court of Justice, in the chambers of President Rodríguez Iglesias and with Advocate General Poiares Maduro.

He is the author of numerous publications on Union law, including his recent book What’s left of the law of integration? Decay and resistance in European Union law (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Felicity has a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I) from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Sydney. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow for the Future of Law and Innovation in the Profession (FLIP) research stream at UNSW Law and Justice, and a Lecturer at the University of Wollongong.

Felicity is internationally recognised as an expert in family law and legal professionalism; and in new technologies and their impact on lawyers’ practice and regulation. Her research combines her expertise across these areas often with a basis in empirical projects. She is the co-author with Professor Michael Legg of Artificial Intelligence and the Legal Profession (Hart, 2020).

She started her professional career in the private sector before joining the European Commission’s Directorate-General for research in 2007. She moved to DG FISMA in 2009 where she has served in various positions and has been responsible for policy development in fields as asset management, insurance and pensions, corporate reporting, audit and credit rating agencies. She also worked for the policy coordination and international relations unit.

Claude holds a PhD in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She is also qualified as a chartered accountant.

He has previously held positions at Barclays and PwC, and prior to working in the private sector, Mr. Conway worked for the US Department of Defense. He is the author of Counterterrorism and Threat Finance Analysis During Wartime (2015) and A Less Vivid Future (2017). He has also published peer-reviewed articles and op-eds in publications such as Energy Policy, Foreign Affairs, and the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Conway works regularly with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, training financial intelligence units and related government agencies in the Americas, East and West Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He is also the chair of the UN’s quarterly Private Sector Dialogue on the disruption of financial crimes related to crimes that affect the environment. He has a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

In 2000 she joined Banco de Portugal where she has worked in the Supervision Department, Law and enforcement Department and more recently in Issue and Treasury Department.

Between 2002 and 2010 she has been lawyer member of the bar association.

In September 2023 she has joined ECB – Legal Services Department as secondee under the Schuman programme, working closely with the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) Task Force.

She is a proud mother of two daughters: Catarina and Inês.

In 2017, Jeff was seconded to the ECB on a short-term basis where he worked for the Institutional Law Division of the Directorate General Legal Services.

Jeff has experience in various areas of law, in particular institutional law, corporate governance, accounting law, fiscal law, public access law and public procurement law.

Within the Eurosystem, Jeff is member of the LEGCO Task on VAT issues and of the Ethics and Compliance Committee.

Besides his job as legal counsel of the NBB, Jeff is active as a musician (pianist and conductor). Among other musical activities, he is the conductor and cofounder of The Bank Notes, a choir of NBB staff members.

Mr Elderson previously served as Executive Director of De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). At DNB he held several senior positions before joining its Governing Board in 2011.

Frank Elderson co-chairs the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Risks of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. From January 2018 to January 2022 he served as the first Chair of the newly founded Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System.

Mr Elderson studied various courses at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. He graduated in Dutch law at the University of Amsterdam in 1994 and obtained an LL.M. Degree at Columbia Law School, New York, in 1995.

Prior to joining the ECB, Mireia worked at the Madrid office of Cuatrecasas (a leading Spanish law firm), mainly on the area of private enforcement of EU competition law. She also lectured EU administrative law and economic regulation at Instituto de Empresa (IE) and published several academic articles in the field of EU external relations law.

She holds an LLM and a PhD in EU law from the European University Institute (EUI). Her PhD research focused on the institutional legal principles that underpin the foreign policy of the EU to ensure consistency in the Union’s action in the world.

Mireia studied law at the University of Barcelona.

Prior to joining the SRB, Laurent worked at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission and the International Court of Justice, the principle judicial organ of the United Nations. He started his career in private practice.

Laurent studied law in France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

This includes inter, alia the legal aspects of the ECB’s monetary policy implementation (including collateral policy, market interventions, global central banking cooperation), financial litigation, regulatory matters, payment settlement infrastructures and foreign reserve management.

Otto is a member of the Eurosystem’s legal committee. In addition he is Chairman of the European Financial Market Lawyers’ Group, comprising senior lawyers from different banks from the European Union.

He previously worked in investment banking for Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bank of America in London as a Director. He was in charge of debt and equity capital markets and M&A activities in and outside Europe. He also worked for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with focus on project finance transactions in Central and Eastern Europe. He taught part time on the London School of Economics and the Central European University.

Otto has B.A: in Economics from the Budapest University of Economics, Doctor Juris from ELTE University Budapest, LLM in German Law from the University of Trier, and LLM in European Law from the University of Oxford.

Prof. Kamann’s expertise comprises questions of European constitutional and administrative law, inter alia in the areas of banking supervision and resolution, data protection and digital regulation, European and German competition, state aid and procurement law, as well as representation of public institutions and private entities in more than 100 cases before the European Court of Justice.

Prof. Kamann studied law and economics at the Universities of Passau and Bonn (1988-1994). He received a doctor's degree (Ph.D. in law) in European Union Constitutional Law (“summa cum laude”) at the University of Passau (1996). Before entering private practice, he served as a stagiaire with the European Department of the German Federal Ministry of Commerce (1997) and with the European Commission’s Legal Service (1998). Prof. Dr. Kamann has lectured on European and international regulation topics at the University of Passau, the University of Saarbrücken, the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, and the Management Center Innsbruck.

He has been with the ECB since 2011 in various roles, including as a participant in the ECB Graduate Programme, working in the field of banking supervisory law, financial law as well as policy matters. Mr Lefterov is representing the ECB in court on litigation relating to banking supervision.

Prior to joining the ECB, Asen Lefterov has worked in law firms in Bulgaria specialising in civil and company law.

Mr Lefterov holds a Master’s degree in law from Sofia University and an LLM in EU Business Law from the University of Amsterdam. He has published articles on various aspects of the EU financial services regulation.

In addition to provide advice on civil service law, procurement law and other institutional legal issues like accounting, audit and banknotes, ILA’s fields of legal expertise covers matters relating to central bank independence, rules of procedure, decision-making, confidentiality and access to ECB documents and information regimes, the monetary financing prohibition, privileges and immunities and EU constitutional and administrative law of relevance to the ECB, ESCB, Eurosystem and SSM.

Frederik has been an agent for the ECB in various cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Prior to joining the ECB in 2005, Frederik practiced law at the Brussels’ bar.

Frederik is a graduate from the University of Leuven (Belgium). He holds a postgraduate in EU law from the University of Saarbrücken (Europa Institute - Germany) and a postgraduate in Management of the Legal Profession at the St. Gallen Executive School of Management (University of St Gallen - Switzerland).

She currently serves as the Head of Section for Legal Revision in Central Banking at the European Central Bank (ECB), a position she has held since July 2015. In this role, Metoda oversees the legal review processes, ensuring compliance with legal standards and contributing to the stability of the European financial system.

Before her current position, Metoda was the Principal Lawyer-Linguist at the ECB from January 2014 to June 2015, where she played a critical role in legal linguistics, bridging the gap between legal and linguistic accuracy. Prior to that, she headed the Section for Language Services for Slavonic and Baltic Languages from November 2012 to December 2013, demonstrating her proficiency in managing multilingual legal teams.

Metoda's career at the ECB began in December 2003, where she initially served as a Principal Lawyer-Linguist for nearly nine years. Her expertise in this area was crucial in ensuring precise legal documentation across multiple languages within the ECB.

Before joining the ECB, Metoda was the Principal Legal Counsel at Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d. in Ljubljana from October 1996 to November 2003. During her seven-year tenure, she provided strategic legal counsel and contributed to the bank's legal frameworks, reinforcing her reputation as a skilled legal professional.

Antonio contributes to DG-L knowledge management and coordinates research activities, including the yearly ECB Legal Conference and the Legal Research Programme.

From January 2016 to June 2021, Antonio was Team Lead in the Supervisory Policy Division of DG-HOL, dealing with the finalization of Basel III, regulatory issues of the Banking Union, Brexit-related topics, and the regulation of international banks in the EU.

Between 2017 and 2019, Antonio was seconded to DG-FISMA in the European Commission, focusing on financial services aspects of Brexit, including banking, market infrastructures, and payments regulation.

From 2008 to 2016, Antonio worked in various DG-L divisions, contributing to the institutional setup of the SSM and acting as an ECB agent before the Court of Justice. Prior to 2008, Antonio worked as a lawyer in Italy and briefly with the Italian Antitrust Authority.

Antonio Riso graduated in law cum laude from the University of Perugia, is a member of the Italian Bar Association, holds a PhD in International Law and Economics from Bocconi University of Milan and an LLM in Law and Finance from the Goethe University of Frankfurt.

He holds a Bachelor in Law from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an LL.M in EU Law from the Europa-Institut in Saarbrücken.

He joined the Court of Justice in 2003, where he worked as a lawyer-linguist, then as a référendaire in the chambers of the former President of the Court of Justice, Mr Vassilios Skouris, before becoming Head of the Greek language Translation Unit in 2016.

In this capacity, she deals with a range of financial law matters, including monetary policy, payments and securities settlement systems, own funds management, financial arrangements with international organisations, financial regulation and, more recently, the digital euro project, where she also contributes as member of the Bank of Greece’s team working on the EU single currency package.

She has been actively involved, including from a litigation perspective, in the legal aspects of the Greek debt crisis, with a focus on the EFSF and the ESM financial assistance facility agreements and the Greek debt restructuring (PSI) and has acquired extensive expertise in emergency liquidity-related matters. She is a member of the ESCB Legal Committee. Before joining the Bank of Greece, she had practiced banking and financial law at the legal department of a Greek commercial bank and at a Law firm specialising in banking and capital markets. She holds an LL.B from the University of Athens – Faculty of Law and has obtained her specialisation in commercial and corporate law and in banking and finance law from the University of London (LL.M., University College London & King’s College London).

He has been working on AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism) topics since 2010. He is a member of the Expert Group on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing of the European Commission on behalf of the ECB, and a member of the ECB’s representation at the Financial Action Task Force.

She joined the ECB in 2014 and since then has worked on financial law aspects relevant to the ECB’s monetary policy implementation. She has also represented the ECB before CJEU in several cases relating, amongst others, to the ECB’s involvement in the Greek sovereign debt crisis and the Cypriot bank restructuring measures.

Prior to joining the ECB, she worked as a solicitor in the Banking Team of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, in London and Frankfurt, where she advised borrowers and lenders in a variety of financing and restructuring transactions.

Petra holds a Master of Laws degree from University of Rijeka, Croatia. She joined the ECB in 2012 as a Croatian lawyer-linguist and also worked with the ECB Data Protection officer’s team and in DG Human Resources.

Prior to joining the ECB she worked for more than 10 years in the private sector practising as a lawyer in the fields of civil and criminal law and as a certified legal translator.

He focuses on financial law-related matters such as the legal aspects of the ECB’s monetary policy implementation, including non-standard measures. He previously worked as an attorney at law with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP and then in investment banking at BNP Paribas. He was in charge of equity and equity-linked capital market transactions and M&A activities in and outside Europe. Mr Várhelyi has been admitted to the Paris Bar Association.

He graduated from the Magistère and holds an LL.M. in commercial and corporate law from the University Panthéon-Assas Paris II.

He is head of the department of Artificial Intelligence in the Bernoulli Institute of Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Science and Engineering. He participates in the Multi-Agent Systems group and the NWO Zwaartekracht Hybrid Intelligence project, in which he co-coordinated its `Responsible Hybrid Intelligence' line. His research focuses on the connections between knowledge, data and reasoning, as a contribution to responsible artificial intelligence. He uses an argumentation perspective, inspired by the domains of law and evidence. He led a research project on the connections between arguments, scenarios and probabilities in forensic reasoning with evidence, funded by the NWO Forensic Science program (2012-2017). More information.

He was resident fellow at Stanford University (at the CodeX Center for Legal Informatics), was invited researcher at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (University of Cambridge), and taught graduate courses at Sun Yat-Sen University (Guangzhou, China), Central South University (Changsha, China), University of Potsdam (Potsdam, Germany) and Universidad Nacional del Sur (Bahia Blanca, Argentina). He has an MSc degree in Mathematics (University of Amsterdam, algebraic geometry) and obtained his PhD degree at Maastricht University (Faculty of Law, Department of Metajuridica; Faculty of General Sciences, Department of Computer Science), on a dissertation about the formal modeling of argumentation, with applications in law.

He has published on artificial intelligence and argumentation in more than a hundred peer-reviewed publications. His h-index is 35+ (see his Google Scholar author profile). He is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Argument and Computation, section editor of the journal Artificial Intelligence and Law, and participates in professional organisations (COMMA, president; JURIX, vice-president/secretary; BNVKI, community builder; CLAIRE, member informal advisory group ethical, legal, social Issues/National Advisory Board NL chapter; IPN, member Special Interest Group AI). He was president of the International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law (IAAIL).

Her current research focuses on profiling, inferential analytics, explainable AI, algorithmic bias, diversity, and fairness, as well as governmental surveillance, predictive policing, human rights online, and health tech and medical law.

At the OII, Professor Sandra Wachter leads and coordinates the Governance of Emerging Technologies (GET) Research Programme that investigates legal, ethical, and technical aspects of AI, machine learning, and other emerging technologies.

Professor Wachter is also an affiliate and member at numerous institutions, such as the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Values, Ethics and Innovation, the UNESCO, the European Commission’s Expert Group on Autonomous Cars, the Law Committee of the IEEE, the World Bank’s Task Force on Access to Justice and Technology, the United Kingdom Police Ethics Guidance Group, the British Standards Institution, the Law Faculty at Oxford, the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, the Oxford Martin School and Oxford University Press.

During her 20-year long career in the Council Legal Service (CLS), Andrea has gained extensive experience in various areas of EU Law. In the CLS Directorate for Economic and Financial Affairs, Budget and Structural Funds (Ecofin), she has made a decisive contribution to key files such as the Next Generation EU, the SURE Regulation, the Banking Union, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the reform of the European Stability Mechanism. She currently advises the Council on the proposals on the digital euro and the legal tender of cash.

Andrea acts as an agent for the Council and the European Council before the Courts of the European Union in respect of files in her purview, including banking resolution and other aspects of the Banking Union.

Before joining the CLS, Andrea has been practicing law as advocate in Prague and in Brussels.

Andrea earned her PhD in law from Charles University in Prague and her diploma of post-graduate studies in European Law from University Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne.

She advises on banking supervisory law and has been an agent representing the ECB in numerous court cases before the General Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union. She previously worked in the Policy Division within the Banking and Financial Supervision Department of the Deutsche Bundesbank and was a member in the preparatory legal workstream setting up the Single Supervisory Mechanism. She also gained professional experience at international law firms.

Emilie obtained her law degrees at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt and Université Paris X-Nanterre and holds an LL.M. Finance degree from the Institute for Law and Finance. She was a research assistant at the House of Finance and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Columbia Law School in New York and has conducted extensive research in the area of financial regulation and supervision. Emilie qualified for the bar in Germany in 2006.

In 1989 she joined the Legal Service of the Council of Ministers in Brussels, moving to the Legal Service of the European Monetary Institute in 1995 and subsequently to the ECB as Head of Division in Legal Services in 1998, where she was appointed Director General in 2013.

Ms Zilioli holds an LLM from Harvard Law School and a PhD from the European University Institute. Since 1994 she lectures at Goethe University Frankfurt, at its Institute for Law and Finance and at the European College of Parma, Parma University. In 2016 she was appointed Professor of Law at Goethe University Frankfurt. She has published numerous articles and four books. She is also a member of the Parma Bar Association.

Chiara Zilioli has been married to Andreas Fabritius for more than 30 years; they have four children.