Speaker: Professor Paul Deemer (Vanderbilt Law School)

This lecture focuses on the development and project financing of large international infrastructure projects, and covers –

• What is “project finance” and what is not? How does a “project financing” differ from other types of financing?
• Why is project finance used on large infrastructure projects? What is “leverage,” and why is that important?
• What legal structures and documents are commonly used in project financings?
• Who are the participants in a project financing? What are their roles?
• What is the role of the lawyer? Why should a new lawyer be familiar with project finance?

In discussing these issues, the speaker draws on his experience representing clients on projects in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners.

For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website:

http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Speaker: Professor Eva Micheler (LSE)

Abstract: Reliance on agency-theoretic reasoning has led to substantial theoretical and empirical advances in company law scholarship, but the narrow focus on board-level actors and phenomena has disconnected the analysis of the company from the reality of the economic organisation it is meant to enable and support. We follow Oliver Williamson’s call for a ‘law, economics, and organization’ approach, and build on Elinor Ostrom’s ‘institutional analysis and development’ framework to propose a narrative model of the company in terms of nested levels of governance. We argue that our model works as a positive description of the law as it is, and puts us in a stronger position to evaluate the likely consequences of certain normative interventions, which we illustrate with some observations about ongoing debates in corporate governance.

The paper is jointly written by David Gindis and Eva Micheler and can be found at Taylor and Francis Online.

Eva Micheler studied law at the University of Vienna and at the University of Oxford before joining LSE Law School in 2001. She is a Professor of Law at the London School of Economics. Professor Micheler is also on the management committee of the Systemic Risk Centre at LSE. She was a TMR fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of Oxford and teaches regularly at the University of Vienna and the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg.

3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners.

For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website:

http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Speaker: Professor Christopher Nicholls (University of Western Ontario)

In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Yale Law School and Harvard Business School launched an innovative joint program: the “Law-Business Course”. The program’s principal architect was Yale law professor William O. Douglas, best remembered today as the longest serving member of the US Supreme Court and one of the most provocative. For a short time, this remarkable academic initiative brought together professional schools at America’s two foremost universities, foreshadowing the interdisciplinary approach to law and business education that animate modern JD/MBA programs. The creation and short life of this unique academic collaboration provide a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual dynamism of early twentieth century business law education and the politics and practical exigencies facing academic pioneers of that important era. The story of this forward-thinking interdisciplinary perspective also offers important insights into current approaches to business law and, in particular, the pivotal role of modern finance theory in the development of the study, practice, and theory of corporate law today.

3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners.

For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website:

http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/