Ziya Akıncı, is the founding partner of Akıncı Law Office, carries out his duty as the President of Istanbul Arbitration Centre (ISTAC). Dr. Akıncı served as a member of the ICC International Court of Arbitration and he is in list of ICSID Arbitrators Panel. He is also head of the International Private Law Division of Galatasaray University Faculty of Law.

Prof. Akıncı focuses primarily on dispute resolution and has acted as counsel and sole arbitrator in many international proceedings, including international construction projects, energy projects, investment disputes, mergers and acquisitions, international commercial disputes.   

Prof. Akıncı has authored numerous publications on topics including but not limited to international arbitration, international construction law, applicable law to the contracts and the international carriage of goods by road.  

Professor Orkun Akseli is a Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Manchester Law School. He is also a Fulbright Scholar at Elon University Law School, USA and the Director of Manchester LawTech Initiative. He has published extensively on the modernisation and harmonisation of secured transactions law. His research has focused on the laws relating to secured credit, and the social and economic impact of these laws with reference to the financing of SMEs. His publications include “Secured Transactions in Global Law-making” (under contract with Hart, co-authored with S.V. Bazinas); "The Future of Commercial Law: Ways forward for Change and Reform" (Hart 2020, with J. Linarelli); "International and Comparative Secured Transactions Law" (Hart 2017, with S.V. Bazinas); "Secured Transactions Law Reform: Principles, Policies and Practice" (Hart 2016, with L. Gullifer); "Availability of Credit and Secured Transactions in a Time of Crisis" (CUP 2013); "International Secured Transactions Law: Facilitation of Credit and International Conventions and Instruments" (Routledge 2011). He studied law in Turkey, USA and the UK. He is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law and the President of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law. He is a member of the Turkish Bar.

Leyla Ateş is a Professor of Tax Law at the Altınbaş University Faculty of Law. She graduated from the Istanbul University Faculty of Law. She holds an LL.M. and a Ph.D. in tax law from Marmara University. Professor Ateş also received an LL.M. degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, the United States. Prior to her current position, she has held academic posts at universities in Germany, Denmark, Pakistan, and Northern Cyprus. Her research interests are in the areas of international tax law, income taxation, and tax policy. Professor Ates has been a member of IFA since 2009 and the European Association of Tax Law Professors since 2012

Prof. Dr. Başak Baysal holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the Istanbul University and an LL.M. degree from the Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) University. She obtained her PhD degree with her thesis “Adaptation of Contract in Comparative and Turkish Law” from the Istanbul University. Dr. Baysal is currently the dean of the Law Faculty at Kadir Has University, also a professor of civil law department.She is an executive board member of International Association of Legal Sciences and an associate member of International Academy of Comparative Law. She has been to Faculté de droit de l’Université de Caen Basse Normandie and Faculté de droit de l’Université de Paris X as a guest lecturer and Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Université de Paris II/Panthéon Assas, l'Institut de Recherche Juridique de la Sorbonne, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law and University of Freiburg, Faculty of Law as a guest researcher.

Her main areas of research are Contracts, Torts, Consumer Law, Comparative Law, French Law, Civil Liability Systems, Construction Law. Within this scope, some of her main publications are “Serozan Law of Obligations General Provisions (with Rona Serozan and Kerem Cem Sanlı), 2022”, “Adaptation of Contract, 2020” “Tort Law, 2019”, “Special Contracts (with Rona Serozan and Kerem Cem Sanlı), 2019”, “Contributory Negligence, 2012”. Prof. Baysal is a member of Istanbul Bar.

Ercüment Erdem is the Founder and Senior Partner of Erdem & Erdem Law Office. He has approximately 35 years of experience in international commercial law, mergers and acquisitions, privatizations, corporate finance and arbitration. He serves international and national clients in a variety of industries including energy, construction, finance, retail, real estate, aerospace, healthcare and insurance.

He has extensive experience in cross-border projects concerning project finance, privatization, mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions in wide geography including Europe, Asia and CIS countries.

Moreover he has successfully represented clients in many arbitration proceedings and enforcement claims in relation to arbitral awards obtained outside of Turkey. He has acted as chairman and sole or party-appointed arbitrator in many international and national arbitrations under different rules including International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Arbitration, Swiss Arbitration, Moscow Arbitration, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Arbitration, Tehran Arbitration, and ad hoc arbitrations and is, furthermore, distinguished in this field.

Ercüment Erdem is a member of Istanbul Bar Association, the Chair of ICC Commercial Law and Practice Commission, and a member of the ICC Court of Arbitration, ICC Institute Council, ICC Incoterms Expert Group, and ICC Turkish National Committee Arbitration Council as well as a member of several ICC task forces. He is a member of the Association Suisse de l'Arbitrage (ASA), International Bar Association (IBA), Association Henri Capitant des amis de la culture juridique française, and the Research Institute of Banking and Commercial Law.

He has highly strong academic background. He is an emeritus professor and still continues to lecture in leading universities such as Galatasaray University in Turkey and Fribourg University in Switzerland. He has over 35 year experience as a scholar and his research contains competition and antitrust law, international commercial law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate law etc. He has authored books on international trade law, competition law, mergers and acquisitions, commercial enterprise law, CIF sales, bonds, contracts etc. In addition he has authored numerous articles in national or international publications related to commercial law, competition and antitrust law, contracts law, arbitration, complex business litigation issues, dispute resolution etc.

Sjef Van Erp is a Professor of Civil Law and European Private Law at Maastricht University (The Netherlands), where he teaches foundations of Ius Commune, comparative, European and Dutch property law. He is also deputy justice at the Court of Appeals in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Professor Van Erp is President of the Netherlands Comparative Law Association, editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance (formerly: Electronic Journal of Comparative Law) and editor-in-chief of the recently established European Property Law Journal. 

He is a member of the American Law Institute. He initiated and is now co-editor of the Ius Commune Casebooks for the Common Law of Europe: Cases, materials and text on property law. Professor Van Erp is a founding member of the ELI and ELI Vice-President.

Rafael Leal-Arcas is Professor of European and International Economic Law, a Jean Monnet Chair holder (awarded by the European Commission), Program Director of the LLM in International Economic Law, and former Director of Research at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies of Queen Mary University of London. He received his graduate legal education at Stanford Law School, Columbia Law School, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the European University Institute (Florence). He has served in the Sustainable Energy for All Secretariat (Washington, DC), the Energy Community Secretariat, the Energy Charter Secretariat, the World Trade Organization, and several EU institutions. He is the author of more than 190 scholarly publications on international trade and WTO law, climate change law, energy governance, EU law, international investment law and the interaction among them in American and European scientific journals.

Professor John Linarelli is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Touro University Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center. He currently teaches International Law and Contracts. He has published more than sixty law journal articles and book chapters and several major books and edited collections. His work in commercial and financial law is comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary. His recent work has been on artificial intelligence and contract law.

Professor Linarelli has published widely in international law. His book, The Misery of International Law: Confrontations with Injustice in the Global Economy, co-authored with Muthu Sornarajah (National University of Singapore) and Margot Salomon (London School of Economics) and published by Oxford University Press, won the European Society of International Law Book Prize in 2019.

Before joining Touro, Professor Linarelli was Professor of Commercial Law at Durham University Law School. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow in the European Law Institute. He has substantial Washington DC law firm experience, having practiced at several major Washington DC law firms.

Professor Linarelli has an MA and PhD in Philosophy from the University of California Riverside, where he held a Dean’s Fellowship. He has a PhD in Law from King's College University of London. He earned an LLM in International and Comparative Law with distinction from Georgetown, graduating first in class, receiving the Thomas Bradbury Chetwood SJ Prize. His JD is from the American University Washington College of Law.

View Professor Linarelli’s research on his SSRN Author page: https://ssrn.com/author=332252.

Follow Professor Linarelli on Twitter at @JohnLinarelli.

Professor of Commercial Law at the Carlos III University of Madrid. Currently Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT, Rome, 2021-2022. Chair of Excellence 2017-2018 at the University of Oxford (Uc3m-Santander Program), affiliated with Harris Manchester College. Previously, James J. Coleman, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Tulane Law School, Visiting Professor at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Stanford Law School Fellow, TTLF and Marie Curie Fellow at the ZERP of the University of Bremen, among other visiting professor positions and fellowships, at Columbia Law School, University of Washington, University of Tokyo or University College London. Arbitrator of the Madrid Court of Arbitration. Member of the Council of the ELI (European Law Institute Council) and of the Executive Committee (ELI Executive Committee). Member of the Group of Experts of the European Commission on Responsibility and New Technologies and member of the Group of Experts of the European Observatory of Platform Economics. Member of the Advertising Control Tribunal (Autocontrol) 2014-2018. Member of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law. Member of the expert group of the Inclusive Global Legal Innovation Platform for Online Dispute Resolution - UNCITRAL (United Nations) and Hong Kong Department of Justice. Expert of the UNIDROIT Study Group on the MAC Protocol of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests, member of the Spanish Contact Group of the Aviation Working Group, member of the Rail Working Group. Delegate of Spain to UNIDROIT for the adoption of the Protocol, delegate of Spain in Working Group VI of UNCITRAL (United Nations) secured transactions and in Working Group IV on Electronic Commerce. Expert and Delegate of Spain before UNCITRAL and UNIDROIT in the new projects of the work program on Digital Economy, Digital Assets and Artificial Intelligence and Smart Contracts.

Pınar Çağlayan Aksoy is an associate professor of Civil Law at Bilkent University Faculty of Law, Ankara. She received her LL.B. degree from Bilkent University Faculty of Law and her LL.M. and Ph.D. from Ankara University Faculty of Law. She is a member of Blockchain Turkey Platform, Istanbul Blockchain Women Society, and the University of Zurich Blockchain Center. As a member of the European Law Institute, she acts as a member of the Consultative Committee for the project titled "Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts". Her current research deals with contract law, tort law as well as the legal implications of the newly emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence, and distributed ledger technology. Dr. Çağlayan Aksoy has authored and edited books and published articles on international sales law, comparative contract law as well as tort law. 

Svetislav KOSTIĆ (m), Associate Professor, teaching general tax law, international tax law and EU tax law to both undergraduate and graduate students. He is a graduate of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and holds a doctoral degree from the same university (2014) and an LL.M degree from the New York University School of Law (ITP 2007/2008).  He has been focused on the subjects of non-discrimination in international taxation of income and capital (his doctoral thesis is devoted to this particular topic), as well as the interaction between human rights and taxation. In addition to the University of Belgrade, he lectures at the University of Amsterdam, University of Lausanne, New York University, as well as Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Federico Lupo-Pasini is Associate Professor in Corporate and Commercial Law at Durham Law School. He is an expert in international financial law and regulation. His research focuses on international regulatory cooperation, financial integration, international monetary law, and financial regulation.

Dr. Sean Thomas is a Reader at The York Law School, University of York. His primary research interest is in the general field of commercial law, with a focus on (broadly) the transfer of ownership of personal property. He approaches this fundamental issue by examining the interconnections of forms and methods of ownership and control of personal, real and intellectual property drawing on multiple disciplinary and methodological foundations. He has expertise in title conflicts (particularly comparative analysis with United States law), the historical development of commercial law, and the interface between goods and intellectual property, and goods and real property. He also has a longstanding interest in radical property practices, and his work on freeganism has been cited widely across disciplinary boundaries. Recently his work has concentrated on two areas of growing importance: circular economy, and smart technology. His analysis of law and circular economics is amongst the first in the field; he takes a rather sceptical view of the legal implications of circular economics on the ownership and use of goods. He has also published work examining the interface between sales law and smart technologies; again, he is critical of the possible implications for ownership of goods.

Dr. Vincenzo Bavoso is a senior Lecturer in Commercial Law in the Law School, University of Manchester. Before moving to Manchester in 2014 he held academic appointments at Durham University (2013-15) and Kingston University (2011-13). He completed his PhD in Corporate and Financial Law at the University of Manchester, during which time he was a part-time associate lecturer.

Prior to entering academia, Vincenzo was a practising lawyer in Italy and subsequently in Monaco and the UK.

Vincenzo’s research and teaching expertise lies at the intersection of financial regulation and corporate governance. He has published widely in these areas and has participated in a number of policy-making exercises (Foundation for European Progressive Studies; Centre for European Policy Studies; European Capital Markets Institute; Politico). His research has been cited by The EU Parliament, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Standards & Poor’s Global Markets.

Vincenzo’s research can be freely accessed on the Social Sciences Research Network: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=718360

Michael joined the University of Manchester in 2014. He has previously taught in the field of company law, corporate governance, and securities regulation at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Leeds. He has also published extensively in this area and he is co-author of the Globalization of Corporate Governance (2009) with Alan Dignam (QMUL). Michael has practiced in Greece where he has also held government advisory positions and served as an independent director in a quoted company.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Ekin Ömeroğlu has a BA degree in Law from Istanbul University, Faculty of Law. She completed her MA degree in private law from Istanbul University Institute of Social Sciences. The title of her MA thesis is Evidence in International Arbitration. She obtained her PhD degree also from Istanbul University Institute of Social Sciences on private law with her dissertation title Party Autonomy Principle in Applicable Law to rights in rem and Determination of Competent Jurisdiction. She has worked as a research assistant at Kadir Has University Faculty of Law. Since 2017, she is working as an assistant professor at the department of private international law at Kadir Has University Faculty of Law in Istanbul. Her interests are in private international law and international commercial arbitration and she has published extensively in these fields. She is coaching the Kadir Has University Willem C. Vis Moot team since 2012. Dr. Ömeroğlu is lecturing on private international law and international commercial arbitration law at Kadir Has University.

Dr Leopoldo Parada is a Lecturer in Tax Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice (CBLP) at the University of Leeds School of Law in the United Kingdom. He is also Associate Fellow at the Jean Monet Excellence Centre for Digital Governance (DiGov) and external examiner for the LLM in International Tax Law at the King's College of London. Prior to joining Leeds, he held academic positions in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. In the past, he practised full-time as an attorney at law and tax advisor in Chile, Brazil, and the United States.

 

Dr Parada holds an LLB, and LLM in International Taxation and a PhD in Law. His PhD thesis was awarded the Universitè Paris 1 Pantheón-Sorbonne Award for the best PhD thesis in Tax Law in 2018 and the University of Valencia Extraordinary Doctoral Prize in 2020. His research focuses primarily on the international implications of base erosion and profits shifting, tax avoidance and corporate income taxation, the application of double tax conventions, and the tax implications of digitalization in the economy. He has written several peer-review and non-peer review articles in recognised international tax law journals and is a regular speaker in specialised conferences around the world. He is also regularly featured in written and visual media discussing new developments in international taxation. Most notably, his academic work has been cited in the 2019 report of the US Congressional Research Service (“Digital Services Taxes (DSTs): Policy and Economic Analysis”) and, more recently, by the EU Advocate General Mr Henrik Saugmandgaard Øe in his opinion of the case C-342/20,Veronsaajien oikeudenvalvontayksikkö (Exonération des fonds d’investissement contractuels).

 

Dr Parada is an active member of the Society of Legal Scholars (UK), European Association of Tax Law Professors (EATLP), the Tax Committee of Experts of the Joint Italian Arab Chamber of Commerce (JIACC), the GCC Tax Law Expert’s Arena, and the Chilean Bar Association. In 2020, Dr Parada was also included in the "TaxCOOP 35 Leaders of the Future in Taxation excellence list”, recognising him as one of the most promising tax policy experts who passionately contribute to the advancement of taxation and tax justice worldwide.

After being graduated from Saint-Joseph Private French High School Istanbul, Asst. Prof. Dr. Alara Efsun Yazıcıoğlu completed her BA degree in law at the University of Geneva between 2004-2007. While Yazıcıoğlu was doing her LLM degree in economic law at the same university in 2007-2009, she has also worked in the compliance department of Fortis Intertrust. During the same period, she obtained her International Law Certificate from the University of Geneva. Between 2009-2012, she has worked as a research and teaching assistant under the guidance of Xavier Oberson, a professor in tax law at the University of Geneva. During the same years, she received her second LL.M. in Sports Law at De Montfort Law School in the UK. Yazıcıoğlu has worked at the Oberson Avocats (currently Oberson Abels) as a legal counsel in tax law (especially the taxation of sportspersons and entertainers) between 2012-2014. She has returned to Turkey in 2014 and completed her equivalency at Galatasaray University. Between 2015-2017, she has worked in international tax law at GSG Law, a subsidiary of PwC Turkey. She acquired her Ph.D. by presenting her thesis titled "Taxation of International Sports Events", which was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Xavier Oberson at the University of Geneva in 2016. Again in 2016, she completed her legal internship and registered in the Istanbul Bar Association. Yazıcıoğlu has been working as an assistant professor at the Kadir Has University Faculty of Law since 2018. She is also the Head of the Financial Law Department and KHAS Lit Lab coordinator. Yazıcıoğlu has 22 articles published regarding sports and tax law and three books in the field of tax law, one of which is a textbook taught in Switzerland. Yazıcıoğlu also wrote a commentary on Article 128 of the Swiss Constitution on direct taxes with Prof. Xavier Oberson. Yazıcıoğlu is fluent in English, French and Italian, and intermediate in German and Spanish.

Cameron Diver is currently the Deputy Director-General of the Pacific Community (SPC), the Pacific region’s oldest and largest intergovernmental organisation. He is based at the organisation’s headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia, and has held this position since October 2013.

His previous roles include: Head of External Relations and Regional Cooperation for the Government of New Caledonia, Chief of Staff to the Minister for Budget, Finance, Taxation, Energy, the Digital Economy, Audiovisual Communication, Tertiary Education and Research (Government of New Caledonia), Director of the Department of Education (New Caledonia), Deputy Director of Legal Affairs and General Administration (South Province, New Caledonia) and Legal Counsel to the Government of New Caledonia. Mr Diver has also worked in private legal practice as a barrister and international arbitration assistant to Sir David A.R. Williams QC at Bankside Chambers in Auckland, New Zealand. In addition, he was law clerk to the Chief Justice of the Cook Islands and at the Courts of the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC). He has lectured in Constitutional Law, Administrative Litigation, Climate Change Litigation and International Environmental Law and been a keynote speaker at numerous international events. He regularly publishes articles on the law, together with issues in international relations and sustainable development.

Mr Diver has acted as the official representative of Governments and organisations to States and international organisations and, in this capacity, has led delegations at multiple negotiations, conferences and meetings on a bilateral level and in multilateral forums. In particular, Mr Diver led SPC’s delegation at UNGA 74, the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit and at UNFCCC COPs 24 and 25. A dual citizen of New Zealand and France, Mr Diver graduated with bachelor’s degrees in law and arts from the University of Auckland (New Zealand), a Master of Public Law and a Master in International Relations from the University of New Caledonia. He also holds additional qualifications in international relations, international environmental law, international criminal law and leadership.

Among other professional bodies, Mr Diver is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, the International Law Association, the International Bar Association, the “Société française pour le droit international” (the French Society for International Law), the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law, Lawyers for Climate Action NZ and the International Council for Commercial Arbitration.

Emre Özer is a Partner in the Istanbul office. He is an English-law qualified lawyer and worked at a leading law firm in London for almost a decade.

Emre has a broad corporate and corporate finance experience with a particular focus on public and private acquisitions, joint ventures, financing and capital markets transactions. He has represented clients in a variety of sectors, both regulated and unregulated, including on many of the recent, highest profile transactions in Turkey. He is also a member of the firm-wide Defence & Security sector team. 

N. Tuğçe Bilgetekin received her LL.B. degree from Galatasaray University in 2014. She obtained her LL.M. degree with her thesis “Extension of Time in Construction Contracts and Its Appearance in FIDIC Contracts”  from Istanbul University in 2018. Currently, she conducts her Ph.D. studies regarding contract law with behavioral law and economics perspective at Istanbul University. Ms. Bilgetekin is a research assistant in the civil law department at Kadir Has University, Faculty of Law. She has authored several publications on topics including but not limited to construction law, international sales law, harmonization of private law, contract law, and inheritance law. 

Ece Uyanık obtained her LL.B. degree from Kadir Has University. After completing her LL.M. degree at Istanbul Bilgi University, she started to conduct PhD studies at Istanbul University. Her Ph.D. thesis focuses on private international law aspects of cross-border corporate human rights abuses and environmental harm. She is currently a research assistant in private international law department of Kadir Has University, Faculty of Law; also the vice-coordinator of Climate Change and Law Laboratory of Kadir Has University (CCLLAB). She has several publications on conflict of laws, international commercial arbitration and international trade law.

Kaan Can Yıldırım obtained his bachelor's degree from Istanbul University in 2017. He then started the Master's program in Private Law at the same university. During this program, he spent one year as an Erasmus student at the University of Heidelberg, where he completed the program with a thesis on the protection of real property. Following this Erasmus stay, he started the LL.M. program "German and European Law" at the University of Heidelberg, where he graduated with a thesis on product liability. Currently, he is in the preparation phase for his PhD thesis at the University of Heidelberg on civil liability for damages caused by climate change and works as a research and teaching assistant at the Department of Civil Law at Kadir Has University.