Legal Risks: Strengthening Governance and Compliance 2023

Atilla Arda is a Senior Financial Sector Expert in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Monetary and Capital Markets Department; prior to this, he was a Senior Counsel in the IMF’s Financial & Fiscal Law Unit. Mr. Arda joined the IMF in February 2007 from the central bank of the Netherlands where he held a Senior Counsel position and was Substitute Secretary to the Board; he also contributed to the workings of the Legal Committee of the European System of Central Banks. Mr. Arda has consulted for over 70 countries, half of which on-site, including for countries as diverse as Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Kosovo, Myanmar, Portugal, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine. Most recently, he was the deputy head for the Switzerland Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), and he led the FSAP crisis readiness teams for the United Kingdom, United States, and euro area. Mr. Arda is specialized in central bank governance and law, financial law, institutional frameworks for macroprudential policy and crisis management, financial safety net arrangements, crisis preparedness, and bank resolution regimes. Mr. Arda undertook his undergraduate at the Amsterdam Academy of Banking and Finance; he is a graduate of both the Amsterdam Law School and the Amsterdam Graduate School of Law of the University of Amsterdam, where he specialized in international economic and financial law. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and has been chairing Central Banking Publications’ course on ‘Central Bank Governance and Legal Risks’ since 2014.

Dr Joana Setzer is an Assistant Professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research explores the role of courts in climate governance. Since 2013 she has been involved in the Grantham Research Institute’s Climate Change Laws of the World project – the most comprehensive global resource on climate policy, legislation and litigation. She regularly serves as a consultant for a range of international and non-governmental organisations.

Diarmuid has spent a considerable part of his career working on and writing about financial resilience and the operational aspects of central banking, and he has worked across the globe with many central banks and national supervisory and resolution authorities.  

Diarmuid began his central banking career at the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) and was part of the team that played a key role in the CBI’s response to the Irish financial crisis. Diarmuid has also worked in the market operations area of the European Central bank and spent several years at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in both the central banking and crisis management areas, where he participated in the IMF’s technical assistance and Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) work. Having returned to the CBI in 2018, Diarmuid took over responsibility for Brexit and fintech related banking/payment institution/e-money authorisations and banking contingency planning, establishing a new unit. In 2020, Diarmuid undertook a fellowship program with the Financial Stability Institute at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel focusing on crisis management issues.

In late 2021 Diarmuid commenced a secondment to the EU Commission, where he is now part of the Commission’s team responsible for implementing its published Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy where his focus continues to be on financial resilience issues.

Diarmuid also co-leads the development and delivery of a dedicated comparative central banking module as part of a new online Global Central Banking and Financial Regulation master’s degree course with Warwick Business School (and in partnership with the Bank of England).

Mrs. Elsie Addo Awadzi was appointed 2^nd Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in February 2018, with responsibility for financial supervision, financial stability, and financial integrity, among others. She is the second woman to be appointed Deputy Governor in the Bank’s 62-year history. 

Before her appointment as Deputy Governor, she was Senior Counsel of the Financial and Fiscal Law Unit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Legal Department, based in Washington, D.C. In that role, she helped to assess the stability of financial systems in a number of G-20 member countries, and provided technical assistance to help strengthen financial systems and manage financial crises in a variety of IMF member countries. She also advised on legal and institutional aspects of public financial management, public debt management, and fiscal responsibility frameworks.

Eamonn is Director of Ardhill Advisory LTD, an independent consulting firm focused on advising financial institutions, central banks, national authorities and international organisations, including the International Monetary Fund, on financial stability policy. This includes advising on prudential regulation, bank resolution, central bank liquidity and crisis management.

Between 2020 and 2022, Eamonn was a senior advisor to the Bank of England (BoE), leading a resolution planning team for a large UK bank as part of the BoE's Resolvability Assessment Framework, contributing to UK resolution policy development and cross-border cooperation with international authorities on resolution issues.

From 2016 and 2019, Eamonn was Head of the Resolution Office at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). During this time, he was responsible for leading the development of the domestic statutory/regulatory resolution regime for all Hong Kong banks, leading resolution planning for banks in Hong Kong, often in close cooperation with foreign authorities, and contributing to the international cross-border resolution policy framework and resolution plans for global banks through his work as a member of the Financial Stability Board committees and for the cooperative organization of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP).

Before joining the HKMA, Eamonn worked on financial stability topics, including bank resolution at the Bank of England for 4 years. He was also a senior policy advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at HM Treasury (HMT) for 7 years. At HMT he worked at the centre of the UK’s policy and strategic response to the financial crisis, both managing bank failure and the policy response to the Too-Big-To-Fail problem.

In his early career, Eamonn was a diplomat in Washington DC, covering EU foreign policy and trade issues.

Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development and Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. In addition, he is Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate and Development) of the Faculty of Law at HKU and co-founder and former Director of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, as well as Faculty Director and co-founder of the LLM in Compliance and Regulation, the LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE), and the East Asian International Economic Law and Policy Programmes. Douglas served as Head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011-2014, as Director of the Duke University-HKU Asia America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005-2016, and as an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council from 2013-2019. He is a Visiting Professor and Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School of the University of Melbourne, a Visiting Professorial Fellow of the Faculty of Law of UNSW Sydney, a non-executive director of NASDAQ and Euronext listed biotechnology firm Aptorum Group, an Advisory Board Member of the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum, Policy 4.0 and of the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), and co-founder and an executive board member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association. In 2020 he was awarded an inaugural Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Fellowship to study the role of digital finance in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Douglas has published eighteen books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including most recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016) (with Ross Buckley and Emilios Avgouleas) and The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019 (Janos Barberis and Ross Buckley). His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849 , where he is among the top 50 authors in the world by total downloads, as well as among the top 15 law authors. Douglas led the development of Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 100,000 learners spanning almost every country in the world – and the foundation of the edx-HKU Online Professional Certificate in FinTech. In addition, he has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. Douglas has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others.

Eamonn is Director of Ardhill Advisory LTD, an independent consulting firm focused on advising financial institutions, central banks, national authorities and international organisations, including the International Monetary Fund, on financial stability policy. This includes advising on prudential regulation, bank resolution, central bank liquidity and crisis management.

Between 2020 and 2022, Eamonn was a senior advisor to the Bank of England (BoE), leading a resolution planning team for a large UK bank as part of the BoE's Resolvability Assessment Framework, contributing to UK resolution policy development and cross-border cooperation with international authorities on resolution issues.

From 2016 and 2019, Eamonn was Head of the Resolution Office at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). During this time, he was responsible for leading the development of the domestic statutory/regulatory resolution regime for all Hong Kong banks, leading resolution planning for banks in Hong Kong, often in close cooperation with foreign authorities, and contributing to the international cross-border resolution policy framework and resolution plans for global banks through his work as a member of the Financial Stability Board committees and for the cooperative organization of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP).

Before joining the HKMA, Eamonn worked on financial stability topics, including bank resolution at the Bank of England for 4 years. He was also a senior policy advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at HM Treasury (HMT) for 7 years. At HMT he worked at the centre of the UK’s policy and strategic response to the financial crisis, both managing bank failure and the policy response to the Too-Big-To-Fail problem.

In his early career, Eamonn was a diplomat in Washington DC, covering EU foreign policy and trade issues.

Diarmuid has spent a considerable part of his career working on and writing about financial resilience and the operational aspects of central banking, and he has worked across the globe with many central banks and national supervisory and resolution authorities.  

Diarmuid began his central banking career at the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) and was part of the team that played a key role in the CBI’s response to the Irish financial crisis. Diarmuid has also worked in the market operations area of the European Central bank and spent several years at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in both the central banking and crisis management areas, where he participated in the IMF’s technical assistance and Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) work. Having returned to the CBI in 2018, Diarmuid took over responsibility for Brexit and fintech related banking/payment institution/e-money authorisations and banking contingency planning, establishing a new unit. In 2020, Diarmuid undertook a fellowship program with the Financial Stability Institute at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel focusing on crisis management issues.

In late 2021 Diarmuid commenced a secondment to the EU Commission, where he is now part of the Commission’s team responsible for implementing its published Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy where his focus continues to be on financial resilience issues.

Diarmuid also co-leads the development and delivery of a dedicated comparative central banking module as part of a new online Global Central Banking and Financial Regulation master’s degree course with Warwick Business School (and in partnership with the Bank of England).

Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk (@WuerthIngrid) holds the Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law at Vanderbilt Law School where she also directs the Branstetter Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program. From 2012-2018 she served as Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law. Professor Brunk has served on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Public International Law. She has received numerous honors and fellowships, including many teaching awards, the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, the German Chancellor’s Fellowship, and election to the German Society of International Law, to the Order of the Coif at the University of Chicago Law School, and to the American Law Institute. She has written extensively on transnational litigation, foreign relations law, and public international law. 

Atilla Arda is a Senior Financial Sector Expert in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Monetary and Capital Markets Department; prior to this, he was a Senior Counsel in the IMF’s Financial & Fiscal Law Unit. Mr. Arda joined the IMF in February 2007 from the central bank of the Netherlands where he held a Senior Counsel position and was Substitute Secretary to the Board; he also contributed to the workings of the Legal Committee of the European System of Central Banks. Mr. Arda has consulted for over 70 countries, half of which on-site, including for countries as diverse as Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Kosovo, Myanmar, Portugal, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine. Most recently, he was the deputy head for the Switzerland Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), and he led the FSAP crisis readiness teams for the United Kingdom, United States, and euro area. Mr. Arda is specialized in central bank governance and law, financial law, institutional frameworks for macroprudential policy and crisis management, financial safety net arrangements, crisis preparedness, and bank resolution regimes. Mr. Arda undertook his undergraduate at the Amsterdam Academy of Banking and Finance; he is a graduate of both the Amsterdam Law School and the Amsterdam Graduate School of Law of the University of Amsterdam, where he specialized in international economic and financial law. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and has been chairing Central Banking Publications’ course on ‘Central Bank Governance and Legal Risks’ since 2014.