Jacob Bonavita is a doctoral student in the Doctorate/Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics of Money and Finance at Goethe-University. He completed his First Juridical State Exam in Germany (Goethe-University Frankfurt) and received his ‘Licence en droit’ in France (Université Paris X – Nanterre). After completing his studies in Frankfurt, he worked as a Legal Intern at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in Frankfurt. Since 2011 Jacob has been working as a research and teaching assistant for the Department of Private Law as well as the Finance Department at Goethe-University. His research project focuses on contract law and financial markets, particularly the influence of legal institutions on financial market dynamics. His doctoral thesis will address the legal foundation as well as the effectiveness of disclosure obligations in the context of financial advice under the assumption of fundamental uncertainty. He is fluent in German, English, French and Italian.

Maciej Borowicz is a doctoral student at Colombia Law School (CLS) and in the process of completing his doctorate at the European University Institute (EUI). He is also a member of the New York State Bar. He holds law degrees from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland (M.A.) and Duke University (LLM). He also attended courses in law, economics and finance at the University of Antwerp, the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law in Munich, the Swiss National Bank’s Study Center in Gerzensee (Switzerland) and Fordham University in New York. In 2009 he received a prize awarded by the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland for his master thesis on complex licensing agreements (technology pools). While studying at Duke he developed an interest in finance and financial regulation. Later, encouraged by Fabrizio Cafaggi at the EUI, he combined his interest in contract and finance to develop an account of the regulatory functions of standardized financial contracting. At CLS he will continue studying financial contracting using the Legal Theory of Finance as his theoretical framework. In the past Maciej Borowicz worked for law firms in Warsaw and Brussels and taught international banking at a university in Florence. He speaks Polish (native language) and English and has a working knowledge of German and Italian.

Javier Solana is a doctoral student in Law and Finance at the University of Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration (Hons.) and an LL.B. (Hons.) from Carlos III University in Madrid. He also holds an M.Phil. in Law from the same university and an LL.M. in International Finance from Harvard Law School. He has been the recipient of many academic awards, including the prestigious “la Caixa” Fellowship in 2011. Between 2009 and 2012, Javier worked as a research and teaching assistant for the Commercial Law Department at Carlos III University in Madrid. He has also worked as a trainee lawyer at Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira in the international arbitration team in Madrid and, more recently, as a Legal Intern in the Finance and Private Sector unit within the Legal Vice Presidency at the World Bank in Washington D.C. His main fields of research include the regulation of financial institutions and financial products, insolvency and arbitration. He is fluent in Spanish, English and French, has an intermediate command of Mandarin Chinese and a basic knowledge of Arabic.