Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Klaus J. Hopt, MCJ (NYU)

Director at the Institute (1995-2008)

Main Fields of Research

German and European corporate, capital markets, commercial, banking, and business law

Vita

Born 24 August 1940 in Tuttlingen, Germany. Studies of Law, Political Sciences and Economics in Munich, Tuebingen, Bilbao, Paris and New York; 1963 First State Examination in Law (good, 1 out of 64); 1965 MCJ New York University; 1967 Dr. iur. Munich (s.c.l.); 1968 Dr. phil. Tuebingen (m.c.l.); 1969 Second State Examination in Law (very good, 1 out of 426); 1973 Habilitation Munich; teaching qualification (Veniae) in civil law, commercial law, German and European ecenomic law, comparative law, sociology of law, legal informatics.

Professor of law since 1974: Tuebingen Univ. (1974-78, 1980-85, Dean 1982-83); European Univ. Florence (1978-80, Head of Law Department 1979-80); Univ. Bern (1985-87); Munich Univ. (1987-95); Director at the Institute (1995-2008); Univ. Hamburg (1996-2008). Further professorship offers: 1974 Göttingen and Hamburg, 1978 Frankfurt, 1979 Münster (successor of Prof. Schelsky), 1984 Vienna, 1986 Cologne.

Visiting Professor: 1979 Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; 1981, 1983 und 1988 European Univ., Florence; 1987 Paris I (Panthéon Sorbonne); 1988 Kyoto Univ.; 1989-90 Univ. Libre de Bruxelles; 1991 Geneva Univ. and Tokyo Univ.; 1994 Max Rheinstein Visiting Professor Univ. of Chicago; 1999 New York Univ. (Global Faculty); 2002 Harvard; 2002-03 Anton Philips Chair Tilburg Univ.; 2003, 2004 and 2005 Paris II (Panthéon-Assas); 2006 New York Univ. (Global Faculty); 2007 and 2008 LUISS Rome; 2008 Lisbon; 2010 Columbia Univ. New York; 2013 Univ. of Vienna and Vienna Univ. of Economics and Business.

Professional Activities: since 1975 Member of the International Faculty for Corporate and Capital Market Law, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; 1976 Reporter for the German Jurists Forum (Deutscher Juristentag); 1976-78 Special Tutor at Studienstiftung (German Academic Scholarship Foundation), Tübingen; 1981-85 Judge (part-time) at the State Court of Appeals of Stuttgart (bench of competition law jurisdiction); 1989-1993 Special Tutor at Cusanuswerk, Munich; 1991-93 Member of the structural and appointments committee (law) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; 1991-2002 Advisory Board Member of ZEW Mannheim; 1992-97 Head of the research project "Group law in Europe", Univ. Heidelberg/Fritz Thyssen Foundation; 1992-2002 Advisory Board Member of FIW Cologne; 1995-2001 member of the German Takeovers Commission; 1995-2010 Advisory Board Member of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Cologne; 1995-2018 Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Deutsches Aktieninstitut Frankfurt; 2000-12 member of the Deputation of the German Jurists Forum; 2001-02 member of the High Level Group of Company Law Experts advising the European Commission, Brussels; 2002 Chairman of the commercial law section (shareholder protection) of the 64th German Jurists Forum, Berlin; 2002 inaugural fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); 2002-08 Vice President of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft); 2002-12 member of the Stock Exchange Expert Commission at the Federal Ministry of Finance; 2002-07 member of the Takeover Commission of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin); 2003-11 Senator of the Max Planck Society; 2003-06 Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Max Planck Society; 2003-05 member of the supervisory board of the Deutsche Börse AG; 2004 Vice Chairman of the pensions section of the 65th German Jurists Forum, Bonn; 2005-11 board member of the European Corporate Governance Institute, Brussels; 2006-10 Member of the Scientific Evaluation Board of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Berlin; 2007-15 member of the supervisory board of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE); 2009 Evaluation of the Faculty of Law at Univ. of Vienna; 2008 Chairman of the commercial law section (law of listed issuers) of the 67th German Jurists Forum, Erfurt; 2010 Chairman of the public and private economic law (financial market regulation) section of the 68th German Jurists Forum, Berlin; 2011-14 member of the International Advisory Board of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation; 2012 Vice Chairman of the commercial law section (corporate governance) of the 69th German Jurists Forum, Munich; 2012- member of the working group on financial market regulation at the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF); 2013-14 Chairman of the Working Group on the Amendment of the Statutes of the German Research Foundation (DFG); 2019 - Member of the Scientific Committee, Italian Association of Non-executive and Independent Directors nedcommunity, Mailand; 2020- member of the research advisory board of Hamburg University. Expert i.a. for the German Parliament (Committees on Law, Economics, Finance, Transport, Building and Housing), German Federal Constitutional Court, various German Ministries (Finance, Justice, Economics), German Central Bank, European Commission, Bank for International Settlements, Bulgaria and World Bank; Legal Advisor (with publication in each case) i. a. for the Federal Ministry of Finance (1996 Deregulierung des Börsenrechts, 2002 Prospekt- und Kapitalmarktinformationshaftung), the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (1997-98 Verbandsklage und Gruppenklage, 2007-08 Mediation in Europa und der Welt), the Federal Constitutional Court (Zustellung der US-amerikanischen class actions), the European Commission (2007-08 European Foundation). Main reporter, International Academy of Comparative Law, Washington (2010 Comparative Corporate Governance).

Membership in Academies: Member of the National German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (Halle, since 2008) and of the International Academy of Comparative Law (The Hague) and Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund (Sweden); full member (released of duties) of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg; corr. member of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft.

Honorary Doctorates: 1997 Dr. iur. h.c. Univ. Libre de Bruxelles; 1997 Dr. iur. h.c. Univ. Catholique de Louvain; 2000 Dr. iur. h.c. Univ. Paris Descartes; 2007 Dr. iur. h.c. National and Kapodistrian Univ. of Athens; 2010 Dr. h.c. Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.

Awards: 1968 Prize of the Law Faculty Munich Univ.; 2000 Carl-Friedrich-Gauß-Medal of the Scientific Assosiation Brunswick; 2008 Award for Mentorship from the Claussen-Simon Stiftung; 2008 APTISSIMI Prize of the ESADE Barcelona Alumni Law Club; 2009 Federal Cross of Merit (First Class); 2010 Medal of Honour of the Bucerius Law School, Hamburg; 2013 Dr. Günther Buch Prize; 2018 Dr. Otto Schmidt Prize.

Festschriften: 2008 Perspektiven des Wirtschaftsrechts, Berlin (de Gruyter), X + 526 pages; 2010 Unternehmen, Markt und Verantwortung, Berlin/New York (de Gruyter), 2 vol., pp. XXIX + 3447.
Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag am 24. August 2020, Grundmann u.a., Hrsg., Berlin/Boston (De Gruyter) 2020, XVIII + 1592 S.

Celebratory publications: 60th birthday RabelsZ 64 (2000) Issue 3; ZGR 2001 Issue 3; International and Comparative Corporate Law Journal 2000, Issue 4; 65th birthday WM 2005 Issue 33; European Company and Financial Law Review Vol. 3 (2006) No. 2.

Celebratory Symposia: 2000 Univ. Mainz; 2005 Humboldt Univ.; 2006 Hopt & Eisenberg Symposium Tokyo/Kyoto; 2015 Univ. Tübingen.

Biographical entries: Ferrarini in: Hopt, Le banche nel mercato dei capitali, Giuristi stranieri di oggi, Milano 1995, p. VII et seq.; Horsmans, Revue pratique des sociétés 96 (1997) 297 et seq.; Kühne in: Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, Jahrbuch 2000, Brunswick (Cramer) 2001, pp. 159 et seq.; Baum/Grundmann/Haar/Mülbert/Wellenhofer-Klein and Schön in European Company and Financial Law Review (ECFR) Vol. 3 (2006) No. 2 p. 121, 122-123; Mülbert, NZG 24/2010, p. 935; Grundmann et al., in: Festschrift, supra, 2010, pp. XXV-XXIX; Grundmann, in: Grundmann/Riesenhuber, eds., Deutschsprachige Zivilrechtslehrer des 20. Jahrhunderts in Berichten ihrer Schüler, vol. 2, Berlin (de Gruyter) 2010, pp. 221-259; Hommelhoff, ZGR 1/2016, p. 1 und ECFR 2/2016, p. 375; Grundmann, in: Grundmann/Riesenhuber, eds., Private law development in context, German private law and scholarship in the 20th century, Cambridge et al. (Intersentia) 2018, p. 571-609; Mülbert NZG 24/2020, 946.

Academic pupils in Germany: Peter O. Mülbert, Full Professor, Univ. of Mainz; Stefan Grundmann, Full Professor, Humboldt-Univ. zu Berlin; Hanno Merkt, Full Professor, Univ. of Freiburg; Marina Wellenhofer-Klein, Full Professor, Univ. of Frankfurt; Brigitte Haar, Full Professor, Univ. Frankfurt, deceased; Harald Baum, Professor, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg; Thomas von Hippel, Private Lecturer, Judge in Hamburg; Jan von Hein, Full Professor, Univ. of Freiburg; Markus Roth, Full Professor, Univ. of Marburg; Heike Schweitzer, Full Professor, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Christoph Kumpan, Professor, Bucerius Law School, Hamburg; Patrick C. Leyens, Professor, Graz Univ. and Erasmus Univ. Rotterdam; Andreas M. Fleckner, Professor, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Academic pupils abroad: Katharina Pistor, Professor, Columbia Univ. New York; Dimitris Tzouganatos, Professor, Univ. Athen; Georgios Triantafyllakis, Professor, Demokrit-Univ. Thrakien; Katrin Deckert, maître de conférences, Univ. Paris Ouest Nanterere La Défense; Felix Steffek, Univ. Senior Lecturer, Univ. of Cambridge; Li-Jiuan Chen-Rabich, Professor, Tamkang Univ. New Taipei City.

123 PhD students (more detailed: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag 2020, pp. 1559-1568).

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