Navigating legal challenges in central banking: governance, climate, and innovation

Dr. Phoebus Athanassiou is Senior Lead Legal Counsel with the Financial Law Division of the European Central Bank, and a member of the Faculty of the Institute of Law & Finance at Frankfurt University. He holds a PhD in Law, from King’s College, London, and he is a qualified lawyer. He has published extensively on financial services, capital markets regulation, and EMU-related issues. He is the author of several monographs, including Digital Innovation in Financial Services – Legal Challenges and Regulatory Policy Issues (Kluwer, 2018), and academic contributions in refereed journals and collective works. 

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).

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.

Joseph works in the Central Banking Legal Division of the Bank of England. His work focuses on the bank's market operations, including the bank's standing facilities under the Sterling Monetary Framework.

Daniel works in the Central Banking Legal Division of the Bank of England. His work focuses on the bank's market operations, including the bank's standing facilities under the Sterling Monetary Framework.

Mr Marques is currently a Senior Financial Sector Expert at the IMF. He was previously Head of Division at the Resolution Department of the Bank of Portugal, responsible for legal, policy and regulatory affairs related with banking resolution and deposit insurance. Before that, between 2004 and 2013, he worked as a legal counsel in the Baking Supervision Department of the Bank of Portugal, mainly advising on regulation and policy issues related with capital requirements, internal governance, licensing and crisis management. He is a Law Graduate from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Mr Marques has been an active participant in the European discussions on banking resolution and crisis management since 2009. He represented Portugal as an expert in the negotiations of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive and the Single Resolution Mechanism Regulation in the Council of the European Union. He also participated actively in the European Banking Authority’s work on recovery and resolution issues, and chaired several working groups. During the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union he co-chaired the Council Ad-Hoc Working Party on the Establishment of a European Deposit Insurance Scheme.

Finally, Mr Marques has extensive practical experience in the resolution of systemic banks in Portugal. In 2014 he was a senior manager in the resolution process of one of the largest banks in Portugal (Banco Espírito Santo, SA) and in 2015 he chaired the task force at the Bank of Portugal responsible for the resolution of BANIF – Banco Internacional do Funchal, SA.