International Faculty

Each year, the Sydney Law School has a number of distinguished international visitors who contribute to the teaching and research program of the School. It is a valuable opportunity for the exchange of ideas and research, as well as the creation of ongoing international research linkages and collaborations. Below you will find further information on our international visiting faculty program for 2009.

Units of Study taught by our International Faculty 2009

Taxation Units taught by our International Faculty

Commercial and Corporate Law Units taught by our International Faculty

Biographies of our visting International Faculty 2009

Professor Deborah A. DeMott, Duke Law School
Professor DeMott will be the McWilliam Visiting Professor at the Sydney Law School in 2009.
B.A. 1970, Swarthmore College; J.D. 1973, New York University. Professor DeMott spent her early years in DuBois, Pennsylvania. She served as articles editor of the New York University Law Review. She began her professional career with a judicial clerkship in a federal court in New York City, and later practiced with a large law firm in that city, until she joined the Duke law faculty in 1975. In 1989, she received the Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award from Duke University. Professor DeMott served as the Reporter for the American Law Institute's Restatement (Third) of Agency, published in 2006. From 2000-2002, she held a secondary appointment as Centennial Visiting Professor in the Law Department of the London School of Economics. She has also taught at the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne, Texas, Colorado, San Diego, the Hastings College of Law of the University of California, and at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto. In 1986 she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Sydney and Monash Universities in Australia. In Spring 1996 Professor DeMott held the Hurst C. Huber Visiting Chair at the University of Florida College of Law. She is the author of a treatise, Shareholder Derivative Actions, published in 1987 and a casebook, Fiduciary Obligation, Agency and Partnership, published in 1991. Her other writing concerns corporate law, takeovers and acquisitions, and fiduciary obligation.

Professor Geoffrey Miller, New York University
Professor Miller is the Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Study of Central Banks and Financial Institutions at the New York University School of Law. Professor Miller is the author or editor of five books and over one hundred articles in such diverse fields as financial institutions, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including property, federal regulation of banking, land development, securities, financial institutions, the legal profession, and legal theory.

JJ de Vries Robbé, Dutch Development Bank FMO, Netherlands
JJ has been active in structured finance in private practice and as in-house counsel, both in Europe and in Australia. His practice comprises debt capital markets, derivatives and structured finance generally, with a particular interest in credit derivatives and microfinance. He has published various books on securitisation and derivatives, and contributed to domestic and international legal journals. He enjoys lecturing at the universities of Amsterdam, Melbourne and Sydney. His most recent book is Securitization Law and Practice in the Face of the Credit Crunch (International Banking & Finance Law Series), Kluwer Law International, 2008.

Professor Yoshihiro Masui, Tokyo University
Professor Masui has been Professor of Law at Tokyo University since 2003. He has been a visiting professor to a number of US and European universities. He is a member of the Permanent Scientific Committee of the International Fiscal Association.

Professor David Yates, Cambridge University
David Yates is a solicitor and a U.S Attorney-at-Law and holds degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He has held appointments in the Universities of Hull, Bristol and Manchester in the U.K. as well as continuing to hold visiting professorships at a number of overseas universities in Australia, the United States and Asia. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law in the University of Sydney. He was Foundation Professor of Law, Dean of the School of Law and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex before joining Baker & McKenzie, in 1987 as the international firm's Director of Professional Development.

Dr Peter Harris, Cambridge University
Peter Harris is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge and a Tutor, Director of Studies and Fellow of Churchill College. Dr Harris has written extensively on corporate taxation including the leading text Corporate/Shareholder Income Taxation and Allocating Taxing Rights Between Countries: A Comparison of Imputation Systems (1996), which was awarded the International Fiscal Association’s Mitchell B. Carroll prize presented at the Association’s 50th Congress and the Yorke Prize by the Law Faculty of the University of Cambridge. From January 1999 until July 2000, Dr Harris worked as a Technical Assistance Advisor for the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund where he advised on the design and drafting of income tax laws for developing countries.

Carson McNeill, International Monetary Fund
Carson McNeill is the tax administration and policy advisor with the Pacific Financial and Technical Centre (PFTAC), a donor based organisation based in Suva, Fiji. His work takes him to most Pacific Island Countries where he provides technical assistance and support for Pacific Island countries to modernize and improve their tax systems and administrations. Carson also facilitates the Pacific Island Tax Administrators Association, an active regional tax organisation in the Pacific. Prior to becoming part of PFTAC Carson had completed a career with the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department. His roles included a diverse range of senior responsibilities at the regional and national level and included: operational design and management; human resource strategy and design, leading of strategic projects and organizational design. Carson has participated in a number of international fora, including Inland Revenue New Zealand delegations to Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA) and Study Group on Asian Tax Administration and Research (SGATAR).

Professor Michael Furmston, Singapore Management University
Professor Furmston is the Dean, School of Law at Singapore Management University. Prior to this, Professor Furmston was Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean, Faculty of Law at the University of Bristol. Professor Furmston has been a Visiting Professor at a number of US, European, Asian and Australian universities.

Malcolm Gammie, QC
Malcolm Gammie is available to represent taxpayers, the Revenue Authorities and other litigants in tax and tax related litigation. His practice includes commercial and administrative law cases that raise tax issues. He practises before all tax and related tribunals, in the higher Courts and in Europe. Recent cases include Equitable Life Assurance Society v Oakes and Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group v Commissioners of Custom & Excise. In addition to dispute work that ends in court, he also advises in the negotiation and settlement out of court disputes with the Revenue Authorities.

Professor Stafford Smiley, Caplin & Drysdale Attorneys
Professor Smiley is a member in Caplin & Drysdale's Washington, D.C. office and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Tax LLM Program at Georgetown University Law Center. Professor Smiley began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Arnold Raum of the United States Tax Court. He joined Caplin & Drysdale in September 1978 and became a member of the firm in January 1983. Professor Smiley's practice focuses on the taxation of partnerships, S corporations, and other pass-thru entities. He also works generally on business taxation issues and issues relating to the ownership and transfer of assets for tax purposes. He has extensive experience as tax counsel in international financing, leveraged lease, and other transactional settings.

Professor Niamh Moloney, London School of Economics and Political Science
Niamh Moloney holds an LL.B (First Class Honours) from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a Scholar, and an LL.M from Harvard Law School. She took up her first appointment at the University of Nottingham in 1995 and subsequently joined the Faculty of University College London, as Lecturer (1996-1998), and then Queen’s University Belfast, as Lecturer and then Reader (1999-2004). She was appointed as Professor of Capital Markets Law at the University of Nottingham in 2005. Professor Moloney has accepted the appointment of the new Chair in the Law of Financial Markets at the London School of Economics and Political Science from January 2009. Professor Moloney’s research interests concern financial law and the regulation of the capital markets and investment services, and particularly the system which governs the European Union’s capital markets and exchanges. She is the author of the first book on EU capital market and investments services law, EC Securities Regulation (2002). She has held visiting positions or lecturing posts at a number of institutions and was appointed a Research Associate in Law of the European Corporate Governance Institute in 2003.

Professor Eric Talley, UC Berkeley
Eric Talley is a leading authority on corporate law, and law and economics. Since 2006 he has been Professor of Law at UC Berkeley. In addition to teaching corporate law, he serves as a co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. Eric Talley was previously at University of Southern California Law School from 1995 to 2005. He held the Theodore and Ivadelle Johnson Chair in Law and Business in 2005, having become a full professor in 2000. Talley led two of the law school's respected research centers, and was director both at the USC Center in Law, Economics and Organization and the USC/Caltech Olin Center for the Study of Law and Rational Choice from 2002 to 2004.

Professor Brian Arnold, Goodmans LLP
Brian J. Arnold is a tax consultant with Goodmans LLP, Toronto. Professor Arnold is a graduate of Harvard Law School and taught tax law at a Canadian law school for 28 years. He has been a consultant to various Canadian government departments, the OECD, the Office of the Auditor General, the South African Revenue Service, and the Australian and New Zealand governments. He teaches international tax courses at the Harvard Law School and the University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna. Professor Arnold will be teaching LAWS6170 Comparative Income Tax.

Professor Tim Edgar, University of Western Ontario
Tim Edgar is the Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario, Canada and Director of the National Tax Centre. Professor Edgar has written extensively on the taxation of financial transactions, including the leading text Income Tax Treatment of Financial Instruments: Theory and Practice (2000), and has also advised Governments on tax law reform in relation to such taxation.

Other International Visitors

Joan Loughrey, University of Leeds - February 2009
Joan Loughrey is Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Leeds and Deputy Director, Centre for Business Law and Practice. Her research interests include corporate governance, legal professional privilege and confidentiality and privacy and legal ethics.

Professor Judith Freedman, Oxford University - February 2009
Judith Freedman is KPMG Professor of Taxation Law and a Fellow of Worcester College. She worked in the corporate tax department of Freshfields before joining the University of Surrey as a lecturer in law in 1980. She then moved to the London School of Economics (LSE) with a secondment to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies as Senior Research Fellow in Company and Commercial Law from 1989-92. Whilst at the LSE, she lectured and researched on tax and company law. At Oxford, her focus is taxation, particularly corporate and business taxation, but she has a continuing interest in related areas of corporate law, corporate governance, the interaction between law and accounting and small businesses. She participated in the establishment of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation and is now its Director of Legal Research.

Professor John Tiley, University of Cambridge - March 2009
John Tiley is Professor of Tax Law and a Fellow of Queens' College in the University of Cambridge, where he has taught tax law since 1967. He has been Director of the Law Faculty's LLM program on several occasions and is currently Director of the Centre for Tax Law. He was made a CBE for services to tax law in 2003, and is the author of the leading UK academic work on tax law - Revenue Law (5th ed 2005 Hart Publishing, Oxford). He is a founding member of the European Association of Tax Law Professors, is Deputy Chair of the Academic Committee, and served as a part-time judge from 1983 to 1997. Professor Tiley has a keen interest in the tax systems of other countries and has been a visiting professor in many countries.

Philip Daniel, International Monetary Fund - April 2009
Philip Daniel is a Technical Assistance Advisor with the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) at the International Monetary Fund. He works on fiscal regimes for resource industries, and on resource revenue management. He has recently led FAD missions for countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Western Hemisphere regions. Before joining FAD, Philip advised many governments on commercial negotiations and policies for extractive industries – mostly recently for the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste in commercial and intergovernmental negotiations over petroleum projects and revenue-sharing in the Timor Sea, and the Mozambique National Hyrdocarbons Company (ENH) in negotiations for the Mozambique to South Africa Natural Gas Project. Philip has held posts at the Universities of Cambridge and Sussex (UK), at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, as director of a UK consultancy (Transborder), with the government of Papua New Guinea, and the East African Community. Philip is co-editor of a forthcoming IMF conference volume on resource taxation. He holds degrees from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and East Anglia.

Professor Dana M. Muir, University of Michigan - May 2009
Professor Muir is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Business Law at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Professor Muir’s research interests are in employment law and securities law, particularly as they relate to employee benefits. Professor Muir's employee benefits research has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the annual Supplement to Employee Benefits Law. She also is a member of the Board of The Aerospace Corporation where she chairs the Compensation and Personnel Committee and is a member of the Executive Committee. She was a delegate to the first and second White House/Congressional National Summit on Retirement Savings and has served as a Congressional Fellow. Her book, A Manager's Guide to Employment Law: Protecting Your Company and Yourself, was published by Jossey-Bass in April 2003 as part of the Business School's Pressing Problems series.

Professor Randall S. Thomas, Vanderbilt University - June 2009
Professor Thomas is the John S. Beasley II Professor of Law and Business at Vanderbilt University. He has earned a reputation of being one of the most productive and thoughtful corporate and securities law scholars in the United States. His recent work addresses issues such as hedge fund shareholder activism, executive compensation, corporate voting, corporate litigation and the structure of firms. He joined the Vanderbilt law faculty in 2000 to develop and direct the Law & Business Program, having served previously in on the law faculties of the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, Duke University, Boston University, and the University of Washington. Prior to teaching law, Professor Thomas was in private practice for four years, and clerked for U.S. District Judge Charles Joiner of the Eastern District of Michigan. An acclaimed teacher, Professor Thomas teaches courses in the area of corporate law, including corporations and securities regulation and directs the Vanderbilt Law School's LL.M. program and its Summer in Venice academic program.

Professor Peer Zumbansen, York University, Toronto - June 2009
Professor Peer Zumbansen has been the Canada Research Chair in the Transnational and Comparative Law of Corporate Governance at Osgoode since July 1, 2004. Prior to joining the faculty, he researched and taught at the University of Frankfurt and spent the academic year 2001-02 as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy ( http://www.iue.it ). He has also held Visiting Professorships at the University of Idaho College of Law and at Osgoode. His current research in private law focuses on corporate governance, comparative company law and the implications of different political economies in shaping the 'constitution of the firm'.

Professor Henry T. Hu, University of Texas Law School - June 2009
Professor Henry T. Hu holds the Allan Shivers Chair in the Law of Banking and Finance at the University of Texas Law School. Interested in law and modern finance, he has written on such matters as bank derivatives; hedge fund and mutual fund regulation; corporate governance; 'decoupling' of debt and equity rights from economic interests; financial rationality and sophistication; global competitiveness of US derivatives markets; model risk; risk management; swaps and other financial innovations; and Warren Buffett. Professor Hu teaches corporate law and securities regulation at the University of Texas and has also taught at Harvard Law School. He has testified before Congress on the role of credit default swaps in our financial crisis; on the New York Stock Exchange's going public; and on the collapse of Long Term Capital Management. He has also testified before the Securities and Exchange Commission on hedge funds' use of derivatives-based 'decoupling' to try to avoid 13D disclosure.

Michael Kerr - September 2009
Michael Kerr BA (Monash), LL.B (Bond), LL.M (Sydney) is the senior consultant and founder of Natural Advantage, a Montreal-based consultancy firm specialising in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development. He is also a Lead Counsel with the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), focusing on research in the areas of CSR and trade law. Prior to moving to Montreal, he served as legal advisor to the Australian Conservation Foundation for four years where he led the foundation’s work in the areas of environmental law and CSR. He commenced his career as a corporate lawyer with the Melbourne legal firm, Abbott Stillman and Wilson