Prof. Dr. Zetzsche, LL.M., is Professor of Financial Law at the University of Luxembourg where he holds the ADA Chair in Financial Law (inclusive finance) since March 2016 and leads the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance’s House of Sustainable Governance & Markets. Professor Zetzsche also functions as one of the Directors of the Center for Business & Corporate Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and is Visiting Professorial Fellow at UNSW Sydney (appointed 2021-2024). His current research focuses on inclusive and sustainable finance as well as financial and corporate law, in particular on payment and banking systems, collective investment schemes, institutional investments and FinTech/RegTech/CorpTech.
Prof. Zetzsche is listed on SSRN in the Top 10 law authors globally, measured by downloads in the last 12 months (per October 2022). He is the author of more than 350 publications, including some globally leading articles and treatises on sustainable finance law and regulation, collective investment schemes, FinTech/RegTech, corporate governance as well as cross-border financial services. His publications include, among others, the third edition of “The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive” (WoltersKluwer, 2020), the standard treatise on the EU’s AIFMD. His current projects include a monograph to be published with Cambridge University Press (US) on digital finance together with Professors Douglas W. Arner and Ross P. Buckley, a monograph on the European law and regulation of crypto-assets (Cambridge University Press UK, 2023) and a commentary on the EU Taxonomy Regulation and the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Cambridge University Press UK, 2023).
Prior to his call to Luxembourg Prof. Zetzsche held the Propter Homines Chair for Banking and Securities Law at the University of Liechtenstein (2011-2016), headed as assistant professor Düsseldorf Law School, the Graduate Unit of Heinrich Heine University’s Faculty of Law, and lead as executive manager the Center for Business & Corporate Law (CBC) at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf. Prof. Zetzsche obtained a postdoctoral degree (Dr. iur. habil) for his critically acclaimed thesis on collective investment schemes from a comparative law perspective from Heinrich Heine University as well as an LL.M. from the University of Toronto for a thesis on comparative corporate governance and securities law, and earned his doctoral degree (summa cum laude) from Heinrich Heine University in 2004 for his thesis on shareholder information in public corporations.
Prof. Zetzsche has held presentations and lectures at leading universities around the world, for instance (in alphabetical order) Cambridge University, Columbia University, Harvard University, LSE, National University of Singapore, Oxford University, University of Chicago, University College London, University of Hong Kong, University of Paris I / Sorbonne, University of Zürich, UNSW Sydney, Yale University.
Prof. Zetzsche has advised, and presented to, inter alia, the Australian Securities / Investment Committee, the Bank of International Settlement, the CSSF, the Financial Stability Board, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Securities & Market Authority (ESMA), the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the German Secretary of Justice, the German Secretary of Finance as well as the Governments of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. He regularly cooperates with international development organizations and NOGs, including ADA, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the German GIZ, the Toronto Centre, the Worldbank, the United Nations, and the Carnegie Establishment on International Peace, among others. He also functions as board member for collective investment schemes and their managers.
Prof. Zetzsche is a member of ESMA’s standing Consultative Working Group on Financial Innovations, the Luxembourg representative in the Unidroit steering committee on the law and regulation of crypto-assets, co-chairs the European Banking Institute’s FinTech working group, functions as steering committee member of the Sustainable Market Actors’ research group at the University of Oslo and as a Director of the Academic Society of Investment Law (Chicago, Illinois).