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CENTRE for
CORPORATE LAW and SECURITIES REGULATION

  Law School Home
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Academic Staff and Associates

The following academics in the Law School are members of the Centre:

Professor Ian Ramsay (Director)
Paul Ali
Helen Bird
Hellen Blue
Associate Professor Pamela Hanrahan
Dr John Howe
Cally Jordan
Jurgen Kurtz
Professor Tim Lindsey
Dr Christine Parker
Professor Geof Stapledon
Stacey Steele
Christian Witting

The following people are Associates of the Centre:

Sally Sievers
Andrew White
Sue Woodward

Academic Staff
 

ian_ramsay   Professor Ian Ramsay
  (Director)
  Email: Click here

Ian Ramsay is the Harold Ford Professor of Commercial Law in the Law School at The University of Melbourne where he is Director of the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. He has practised law with the firms Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Sydney. Other positions Ian currently holds or has previously held include:

  • Associate Dean, Melbourne Law Masters, Faculty of Law, The University of Melbourne (2005 to date)
  • Dean, Faculty of Law, The University of Melbourne (2002-2003)
  • Member of the Takeovers Panel (which is the main forum for resolving takeover disputes) (2000 to date)
  • Deputy Director of the Federal Government's Companies and Securities Advisory Committee where he wrote a number of reports which resulted in changes to the law including a report on directors' and officers' insurance (1991-1992)
  • Head of the Federal Government's inquiry on auditor independence (2001)
  • Member of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee (which is the Federal Government's main corporate law reform advisory body) (2002 to date)
  • Member of the Federal Government's Implementation Consultative Committee for the Financial Services Reform Act (2001 - 2005)
  • Member of the Executive Committee of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia (1990-1999)
  • Member of the National Law Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (1995 to date) and the Corporations Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia (1995 to date)
  • President of the Corporate Law Teachers Association (2000-2001)
  • Member of the International Federation of Accountants taskforce on rebuilding confidence in financial reporting (2002-2003)
  • Consultant to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and author of the report for ASIC on disclosure of fees and charges in superannuation and other managed investments (2002)
  • Director of the Audit Quality Review Board (2006 to date) 
  • Member of the Federal Government's Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board (2004 to date)
  • Member of the Appeals Commission of the Federation of International Basketball Associations (2002 to date)
  • Consultant to the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) and author of the report for the ABA on reform of the ABA's enforcement powers (2004)
  • Member of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's Corporate Governance Roundtable (1998-2002)
  • Consultant to the Australian Law Reform Commission for its managed investments project (1992)
  • Member of the Australian Law Reform Commission's Advisory Committee for its civil and administrative penalties project (2000-2002)
  • Consultant to the Victorian Government on corporate law reform (2000, 2003 and 2007)
  • Consultant to the Parliament of Australia House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration (2004)
  • Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Paris (2008)
  • Distinguished Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Toronto (1997)
  • Distinguished Visiting Professor and Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong (2001)

Ian has published extensively on corporate law issues both internationally and in Australia. His books include Ford's Principles of Corporations Law - which is Australia's leading corporate law book - (co-author, 13th edition, 2007); Commercial Applications of Company Law (co-author, 9th edition, 2008); Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Employees (co-editor, 2008); Commercial Applications of Company Law in Singapore (co-author, 2nd edition, 2006); Commercial Applications of Company Law in New Zealand, (co-author, 2nd edition, 2005); Company Directors: Principles of Law and Corporate Governance (co-author, 2005) Experts' Reports in Corporate Transactions (co-author, 2003);  Key Developments in Corporate Law and Trusts Law: Essays in Honour of Professor Harold Ford (editor, 2002); Commercial Applications of Company Law in Malaysia (co-author 2002); Company Directors' Liability for Insolvent Trading (editor, 2000); Securities Regulation in Australia and New Zealand  (co-editor, 1998); The Corporate Law Economic Reform Program Act Explained (co-author 2000); The New Corporations Law (co-author, 1998);  Corporate Governance and the Duties of Company Directors (editor, 1997); and Education and the Law (co-author, 1996).

In addition, he has published approximately 140 research reports, book chapters and journal articles.

His publications have been cited by the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court of Australia, the Courts of Appeal of the Supreme Courts of New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, as well as by the Supreme Courts of Queensland and South Australia.

Ian is one of Australia's most successful academic lawyers in terms of competitive research grants.

Ian is a respected commentator in the media on corporate governance and corporate law. He is regularly interviewed in the financial press and has been interviewed for international newspapers including the New York Times. His research has been reported in international newspapers including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Ian has been interviewed on major TV programs such as the 7.30 Report and Lateline, as well as radio programs including the Law Report and various current affairs programs.

For a detailed list of Professor Ramsay's publications see Academic Staff Profile.

Many of Professor Ramsay's publications are available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website.

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  Paul Ali
  Email: Click here

                       
Paul Ali is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law. He rejoined the Faculty in February 2006. Before becoming an academic, Paul worked as a finance lawyer in Sydney, in the Banking & Finance and Corporate groups of two of the leading Australian law firms and also in the securitisation team of a US bank. Paul’s books include International Corporate Governance after Sarbanes-Oxley (2006), Opportunities in Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Securitisation (2005) and Securitisation of Derivatives and Alternative Asset Classes (2005).

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Helen Bird
Email: Click here

Helen Bird is a graduate in Law (Hons) and Commerce from the University of Queensland. After graduation, she completed her articles of clerkship and worked as a solicitor in the corporate, property and commercial litigation departments of Freehills. She joined The University of Melbourne in 1994 and teaches Contract Law, Corporate Law and Principles of Business Law. Her research interests are corporate governance, corporate regulation and enforcement, and legal theory. She is the co-author (with Susan Woodward and Sally Sievers) of Corporations Law in Principle (LawBook Co 7th ed, 2005) which is accompanied with on-line Teaching Resources'.

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Hellen Blue
Email: Click here

Hellen Blue is a graduate in Law and Arts from the University of Western Australia. After graduation, she taught Business Law in Western Australia. She joined The University of Melbourne in 1998. She teaches Corporate Law. Hellen organises the seminar and conference program for the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation.

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hanrahan   Associate Professor Pamela Hanrahan
  Email: Click here

Pamela Hanrahan is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law. She joined the academic staff of The University of Melbourne as a Senior Lecturer in February 1997, having previously practised corporate law and securities law as a Senior Associate with Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks in Melbourne. She holds Honours degrees in Arts and Law from The University of Melbourne and a Master of Law degree from Case Western Reserve University, Ohio USA. In 2005 Pamela completed an SJD at The University of Melbourne.

Pamela teaches Corporations Law at the undergraduate level in both the Law and Commerce faculties, and Regulation of Collective Investments as part of the Law School's graduate program.

Her research interests include management accountability in corporations and public unit trusts, securities law and derivatives regulation.

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howe   Dr John Howe
  Email: Click here


Dr John Howe is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law. He joined the Faculty of Law and the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation in 2005. His research interests include regulatory theory, corporate accountability and labour law, and he teaches in the areas of corporations law, administrative law and labour law.

John received a PhD in law from the University of Melbourne in 2004 for his thesis ‘Government Promotion of Job Creation in Australia: Regulatory Objectives, Instruments and Law’. He also holds undergraduate degrees in Law and Arts from Monash University, and an LLM (Summa Cum Laude) from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.

John is also a member of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law. Prior to commencing an academic career, John worked in private legal practice, and also as a researcher for public policy and advocacy organisations in Washington DC.

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    Associate Professor Cally Jordan
  Email: Click here

Cally Jordan is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law. She joined the Faculty in 2007. She has degrees in both civil law and common law (LLB/BCL McGill University; DEA Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne)) and has practiced in Canada, New York, California and Hong Kong. She spent several years in the New York office of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton practicing international finance. She was previously an Associate Professor at the University of Florida where she taught International Securities Regulation and Corporations.

Cally has worked with the World Bank as an advisor on corporate governance, corporate law and capital markets in a number of countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Chile, Korea, Slovakia, Armenia, Macedonia, Lithuania, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania).

Between 1991 and 1996, she was an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at McGill University and member of the Institute of Comparative and Private Law. She has taught as an adjunct at the University of Melbourne, Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC and Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada. She is a frequent speaker on corporate governance, capital markets and corporate law. She is the author of proposals for the reform of Hong Kong companies law and spent nearly five years living in Asia.

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howe   Jurgen Kurtz
  Email: Click here

Jurgen Kurtz graduated in Law (Hons) and Arts from The University of Melbourne in 1993. He completed his articles of clerkship at Mallesons Stephen Jaques in 1994 and practised in corporate law until 1999. He was appointed a consultant in corporate law to Mallesons in 2000.

He has taught Corporations Law at the undergraduate level in both the Law and Commerce Faculties.

Jurgen completed his LLM by research thesis at The University of Melbourne. His main research interest is in international efforts to liberalise domestic investment laws and the impact of those efforts on the regulation of transnational corporations.

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Tim   Professor Timothy Lindsey
  Email: Click here

Tim Lindsey is a graduate of The University of Melbourne Law School and has a doctorate in Indonesian Studies.  He teaches Insolvency Law and also Indonesian Law, Malaysian Law and Islamic and Traditional Customary Law.  He researches and teaches in Indonesian.  His books include Law and Society in Indonesia and How Companies Work.

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Christine   Dr Christine Parker
  Email: Click here

Dr Parker is an Associate Professor and Reader at the University of Melbourne. In 1999, Oxford University Press published her first book Just Lawyers: Regulation and Access to Justice. In 2002, Cambridge University Press published Dr Parker's second book titled The Open Corporation: Self Regulation and Corporate Citizenship. She teaches subjects dealing with ethics and professional conduct in the legal profession as well as company law and a graduate subject dealing with corporate compliance issues. She is currently leading a major research project (in collaboration with the Centre for Competition and Consumer Policy at the Australian National University and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) evaluating the compliance impact of ACCC enforcement activity.

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stapledon   Professor Geof Stapledon
  Email: Click here

Geof Stapledon joined the Law School at The University of Melbourne in 1995. He was appointed Professor of Law in 2005 and he currently has a part time appointment in the Faculty of Law. In June 2005 Geof was appointed Managing Director of ISS Australia, which is the regional headquarters of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) - the world's largest proxy voting and corporate governance adviser. ISS Australia was established in mid-2005 when ISS acquired Proxy Australia, a Melbourne-based proxy voting and governance research firm that Geof co-founded.

Geof has taught corporate law, competition law and corporate governance at the University of Melbourne. He has published widely in the areas of corporate governance, institutional investment, and corporate law. His book Institutional Shareholders and Corporate Governance was published by Oxford University Press in 1996. Geof is the Editor of the Company and Securities Law Journal; a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Corporate Law Studies; and the Asia-Pacific and Far East Contributing Editor for Governance newsletter.

Geof has degrees in Economics and Law from the University of Adelaide, and a doctorate from the University of Oxford. He has previously worked as a solicitor specialising in corporate advisory work.

For a detailed list of publications see academic staff profile.

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steele   Stacey Steele
  Email: Click here

Stacey Steele joined the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation in 2005. She joined the Asian Law Centre in 1997 as a research associate and was appointed Associate Director (Japan) for the Asian Law Centre in January 2002.

Stacey holds degrees from the University of Queensland (BA (Jap)), Monash University (MA (Jap)) and the University of Melbourne (LLB (Hons) and LLM (by thesis)) and works as a Senior Associate in the Financial Services Group at Blake Dawson Waldron.

Stacey teaches Insolvency Law, Law and Society in Japan and in graduate subjects offered by the Law School and recently published a translation of the Law Relating to Recognition and Assistance for Foreign Insolvency Proceedings for the Ministry of Justice, Japan.

Her research interests are in the areas of Japanese insolvency law, law reform and the Japanese legal system.

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  Christian Witting
  Email:
c.witting@unimelb.edu.au

 

 

Christian Witting is an Associate Professor of Law, Fellow of the European Centre for Tort and Insurance Law and Barrister and Solicitor (Vic). He teaches Corporations Law and Torts at the University of Melbourne. His current research relates to corporate groups. Earlier research concerned the duty of care in tort and causation of economic losses. This culminated in publications including Witting, Liability for Negligent Misstatements (Oxford, 2004) and Van Boom, Koziol and Witting (eds), Pure Economic Loss (Vienna, 2004). His work has been cited in the House of Lords, the High Court of Australia, Federal Court of Australia and other appellate courts. Christian has presented many papers internationally and has spoken at professional training courses conducted, inter alia, for the College of Law for England and Wales, Munich-Reinsurance and Victorian Government Departments. 

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Associates of the Centre

Sally Sievers

Sally Sievers (BA, LLB (Melb); LLM (Monash) is an Associate of the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. She was previously a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Monash University. Her main research interests are corporations law, especially directors' duties and non-profit associations. She is the author of Associations and Clubs Law in Australia and New Zealand (2nd ed, 1996) and co-author of Corporations Law in Principle (7th ed, 2005). Sally has taught Corporations Law in the JD and LLB programs and Corporate Law to students undertaking the Bachelor of Commerce degree. Sally is also a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria She was a member of the Corporations Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia.

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  Andrew White
  Email: Click here

Andrew White is an Associate Professor of Law in the Singapore Management University School of Law. Andrew’s primary research focus is on Asian and Islamic law, including especially Islamic commercial law (Fiqh al-Muamalat) in Asia and commercial law reform in developing countries. Andrew has extensive experience as a consultant in areas of commercial law reform, including Shar?'ah/Fiqh al-Muamalat and other areas of commercial law in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Prior to joining Singapore Management University, Andrew was a Senior Fellow in the Melbourne Law School, where he taught corporate law, dispute resolution, and legal ethics subjects in the LLB and JD programs. He also holds a continuing appointment in the Melbourne Law School’s Asian Law Centre.

Andrew received his LL.M. (First Class Honours in all subjects) from the University of Melbourne and his Juris Doctor degree from Case Western Reserve University (Ohio, USA). For nearly 25 years, he practiced business and commercial law (transactional and litigation) in the US and Europe as a partner in a major international law firm based in Washington, DC, as a senior attorney in a law firm in Germany, and most recently as principal in his own law firm in North Carolina, USA.

His most recent publications include: ‘PART II, ASIA PACIFIC: AUSTRALIA [Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in Australia: Current AML/CTF Laws and Proposed Reforms]’ in Wouter H Muller, et al (eds.), Anti-Money Laundering: International Law and Practice (John Wiley & Sons: 2007); ‘The Paradox of Corruption as Antithesis to Economic Development: Does Corruption Undermine Economic Development in Indonesia and China, and Why Are the Experiences Different in each Country?’ 8(1) Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal (University of Hawai’i: 2006); and ‘Decentralized Environmental Taxation in Indonesia: A Proposed Double Dividend for Revenue Allocation and Environmental Regulation’ 19(1) Journal of Environmental Law (Oxford University Press: 2007). He has recently completed another manuscript, ‘How does a Culture of Corruption Affect Asian Companies Laws?: Companies Laws in China and Singapore Compared’.


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woodward   Sue Woodward
 

Susan Woodward (LLB (Hons)(Melb) Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria) is an Associate of the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. She taught at the University of Melbourne Law School until 2004.

Prior to joining The University of Melbourne, Susan practised in commercial law both in Australia and London. She also worked as in-house legal counsel for the Australian Industry Development Corporation. At the University, Susan taught Corporations Law for several years.

Susan is the lead author of Corporations Law in Principle (Law Book Co 7th ed 2005), together with colleagues Helen Bird and Sally Sievers. It is accompanied by on-line Teaching Resources and, as part of the In Principle Series, was awarded a prize for the best Tertiary Book Series at the Australian 10th Annual Excellence in Educational Publishing Awards.

Susan's recent research has involved conducting a three year research project on "Accountability and Corporate Governance in Not-for-profit Companies" . The final report for this project (which includes law reform recommendations) was published in 2004.

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