Professor (em.) Klaus J. Hopt

Professor Klaus J. Hopt is Emeritus Professor at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg/Germany (since 1995). His university experience records professorships of law in Tuebingen (1974-78, 1980-85, dean 1982-83), at European Univ. Institute, Florence/Italy (1978-80, head of law dep. 1979-80), in Bern/Switzerland (1985-87), in Munich (1987-95) and various visiting professorships in Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA (U. Chicago, Harvard, NYU, Columbia et al.). He was on the board of the ecgi from 2005-2011.

His professional career includes: judge at the State Court of Appeals of Stuttgart/senate for commercial law and trade regulation (1981-85), member of the German Takeover Commission (1995-2001), member of the Deputation of the Deutscher Juristentag (2000-06), member of the High Level Group of Company Law Experts, European Commission, Brussels (2001-02), member of the Takeover Advisory Board (since 2002), vice president of the German Research Foundation (2002-07), chairman of the Scientific Council of the Max-Planck-Society (2003-2006), member of the supervisory board of the Deutsche Börse AG (2003-2005), member of the International Advisory Board of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2011-2014), member of various state expert commissions, boards and panels, expert for the German Parliament, the German Federal Constitutional Court, various German Ministries, the German Central Bank, the European Commission, Bulgaria and the World Bank; arbitrator, national and international. He is member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 2008).He is author, editor and co-editor of a number of publications in the field of corporate and commercial law, particularly on corporate governance and takeover law.