Klaus J. Hopt

Visiting Professor of Law (Spring 2010)

Office: 435 West 116th Street, 717 JGH
New York NY 10027
Email: khopt@law.columbia.edu


Courses/Current Research
  • German and European corporate and capital markets
  • German and European commercial, banking, and business law

Education
  • University of Munich, Dr. iur. and Habilitation, 1967
  • University of Tuebingen, DPhil., 1968
  • New York University, M.C.J.

Media Contact:
Public Affairs, (212) 854-2650


Detailed Biography:
Klaus J. Hopt is member of the Max Planck Society since 1995 and was managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg/Germany until 2007. Before 1995, he held full professorships at the Universities of Tuebingen in 1974-78 and 1980-85 (dean 1982-83), Florence/Italy 1978-80 (European Univ. Institute, head of law department 1979-80), Bern/Switzerland 1985-87, and Munich 1987-95. He was judge at the court of appeals in Stuttgart from 1980-1985. He held visiting posts at many universities in Europe, in Japan at Todai and Kyodai, and in the United States Pennsylvania, Chicago, New York University and Harvard Law School.

He has published widely in the fields of German and European corporate, capital markets, commercial, banking, and business law. His main interests lie in corporate governance and European corporate and financial integration. He has been involved in many policy-related projects with the German government, the German Federal Constitutional Court, the European Commission, the Bank for International Settlements in Basle et al. He was member of the German Takeover Commission, the High Level Group of Company Law Experts of the European Commission and vice-president of the German Research Foundation. He is in the board of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI Luxembourg) and member of the scientific evaluation advisory board of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation.


Publications:
  • Legal Harmonization and the Business Enterprise (1988, de Gruyter Berlin, with Buxbaum)
  • Comparative Corporate Governance (1998, OUP, ed. with Roe et al.)
  • Reforming Company and Takeover Law in Europe (2004, OUP, ed. with Ferrarini et al.)
  • Corporate Governance in Context (2005, OUP, ed. with Wymeersch et al.)
  • The European Foundation 2006 (Cambridge U.P, ed. with Walz et al.)
  • The Anatomy of Corporate Law (2d ed 2009, OUP, with Kraakman et al.)