Prof. Emilios Avgouleas

Professor Emilios Avgouleas holds the International Banking Law and Finance Chair at the University of Edinburgh and is the founding director of the Edinburgh LLM in International Banking Law and Finance and a senior research fellow at Edinburgh University's blockchain lab. He is a Member of the Stakeholder Group of the European Banking Authority (EBA) elected in the so-called 'top-ranking' academics section. He is also an independent member of the Euro-working group select panel for the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, the major shareholder of the Greek banking sector. Emilios is currently a visiting Research Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong (HKU), a post designated for distinguished international scholars, and a Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor at the department of European Political Economy, LUISS, Rome.

Between 2008 and 2017 he served, at different times, as a distinguished visiting professor, visiting professor, visiting professorial fellow and senior research scholar at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University, Duke Law School, CUPL (China-Europe School of Law), and the Athens Univ. of Economics & Business. 

Emilios has published extensively in the wider field of International and European finance law and economics, banking theory and regulatory policy, systemic risk and leverage, blockchain derivatives markets and systemic risk distribution, and behavioural economics and financial markets regulation.  He is also heavily engaged or is leading academic/industry projects aiming to build DLT-based markets for the trading of illiquid financial assets. 

Emilios is the author of a large number of peer-review journal articles and of highly acclaimed research monographs. Indicatively: Governance of Global Financial Markets: The Law, the Economics, the Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and The Mechanics and Regulation of Market Abuse: A Legal and Economic Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2005); and he co-authored the Principles of Banking Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 2018). He has recently co-authored and co- edited three research volumes: Reconceptualizing Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Capital Markets Union in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2018), The Political Economy of Financial Regulation (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Emilios was also the Guest (co-)Editor of the Special Issue of the EBOLR (2019(20)) on Law, Finance and Technology touching on Fintech, smart contracts, blockchain systems/markets, and the regulation of the challenges they raise. 

Emilios is a leading international expert on public policy and financial reform, banking theory, banking and capital markets regulation, law and finance, and global economic governance. His current research focuses on political liberalism and financial markets, financial stability and financial crises (with Douglas Arner), bank resolution (with Charles Goodhart), blockchain technology and financial markets (with A. Kiayias), Big data analytics, AI/ML and block box techniques, algorithmic governance and accountability. His most recent output (2019) concerns the transformation of systemic risk distribution in global derivatives markets through the introduction of blockchain technology and with Prof. A. Kiayias of Informatics he has built a model (White Paper/Proof of Concept) for DLT trading and clearing of OTC derivatives as well as of other kinds of non-liquid investments. This model can also have a transformative impact on market short-termism, boosting sustainable finance and long-term investment. Public itnerest consulting egagements include assignments on the regulation of cryptoassets, AI/ML and blackbox techniques and detection and prevention, economic crime, AI/ML and algorithmic governance in the financail sector.

Emilios teaches strongly inter-disciplinary courses on banking law and finance, financial regulation, capital markets law, and the law and economics of corporate finance both at the PG and the UG level and supervises a number of gifted PhD students. He has at various periods acted as Director of the Edinburgh Commercial LawCentre and head of subject area.

An impactful scholar, Emilios' work is frequently cited and commented upon in major Parliamentary and public policy reports, including  the UK Parliament's Enquiry on Banking Standards (which also adopted Emilios' conceptual definition of market abuse), EU Commission's Report on Short Selling, Australian Parliamentary Enquiry on Pensions, US Congress Inquiries, the House of Lords - EU Committee, the Irish Commission on Banking, as well as major think-tank and finance industry reports and submissions in major consultations on such diverse issues as banks and corporate disclosure regimes, long-term & sustainable equity markets, bank structural reform, and bank bail-ins. He is also often cited by the global media including the Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal and his public statements to Reuters etc. on 8.11.2017 were instrumental in unravelling the global securities fraud perpetrated by Steinhoff.

Until 2008 Emilios practised in the broader field of International and European financial law and structured finance. He worked as an Associate at the Derivatives and Financial Institutions Group of Clifford Chance LLP, as a Managing Associate at the Financial Markets Group of Linklaters, and as an equity partner at a large continental Law Firm.

Emilios sits on the editorial board of seven well known scientific journals including the Journal of Financial Regulation and acts as a peer reviewer for the ERC, ESRC, Leverhulme Trust as well as the leading law journals: OJLS, MLR, etc. He also acts as an external examiner for parts of the LLM programmes of the LSE and Hong Kong University. On occasion he has acted as chair of review committes for research and PG programmes around the globe and research centers.

Emilios is also a member of the sovereign debt group of the Financial Markets Law Committee (operating under the auspices of the Bank of England), and a member of the Royal Economic Society (RES). Before joining Edinburgh in January 2012 Emilios was a University Professor of International Financial Markets and Financial Law at the University of Manchester.