International Trade, Investment & Corporate Governance

Think Tank Programme

Our Programme

Our focus is to shed the light on the importance of Corporate Governance and the role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the business world. We aim to demonstrate latest trends and research in the field of international trade, investment and governance and to produce research and industry led policies that help improve the overall business and trade environments internationally.

Building on our diverse team, we look to create and support researchers in the field of trade, investment and corporate governance internationally and to lead the way in creating a more diverse, inclusive and supportive environment.

Our mission, broadly-speaking, is to promote research-based corporate social responsibility. Specifically, we:
– Promote better corporate governance by improving diversity at all levels
– Publicise and comment on best-practice corporate whistleblowing protection
– Work with corporations to be more mindful of, and mitigate, digital poverty

Fellows

Prof Peter Muchlinski

Fellow

SOAS University of London

Peter Muchlinski is Emeritus Professor in International Commercial Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Prior to joining SOAS, he was Professor of Law and International Business at Kent Law School, University of Kent (2001-5). He was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics (1983-1998), and Drapers’ Professor of Law in the Law Department of Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, from 1998 to 2001. He specialises in international business and economic law, comparative corporate law and international investment law in which fields he has authored numerous papers and articles. His more recent published work concentrates on business and human rights. In 1990 he qualified as a barrister in the field of commercial and European law and is a door tenant at Brick Court Chambers, London. He has also acted as a legal adviser to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on investment law and policy issues between 1997 and 2012.

Dr Angus Young

Fellow

Hong Kong Baptist University

Junior Fellows

Dr. Wael Saghir

Junior Fellow

LLB, BSc, LLM, PhD
Lead for GRN Think Tank Programme in International Trade, Investment & Corporate Governance

Wael is an International Business Consultant, Visiting Lecturer and Consulting Professor to leading US and UK institutions. He is an expert in investment risks and protection, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and in international business and financial law. Wael is actively presenting his findings at international conferences and has published monographs and articles archived at the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the US Export Import Bank on international financial law and investment regulations. He is an Associate Editor at the ISLRev Journal and active member at international organisations including SLS, LCIA and ASA.

Ibukun Iyiola-Omisore

Junior Fellow

Lead for GRN Think Tank Programme in International Trade, Investment & Corporate Governance

Ibukun is a Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Business Law and Practice, University of Leeds. She is interested in the role of corporate governance and sustainability in emerging economies. Her PhD research is on the link between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility in West Africa, with focus on multinational companies.

Dimitrios Kafteranis

Junior Fellow

Lead for GRN Think Tank Programme in International Trade, Investment & Corporate Governance

Mr Dimitrios Kafteranis is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law of the University of Luxembourg. He was a junior academic visitor at the University of Oxford, Trinity College Dublin and the University of Antwerp. Prior starting his PhD, Dimitrios was working at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Associate

Carolina Fabara

Associate

Nancy Carolina Fabara Verdezoto-. lawyer of the Courts of Justice of the Republic of Ecuador by the University of the Americas. Specialist in Business Law from the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. Currently studying in China her Master of Laws (LLM) with a focus on commercial and economic law at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. She has a diploma in International Defense of Human Rights from the University of Zaragoza – Spain; a Diploma in Defense of Women’s Human Rights at Universidad Austral – Argentina.
Her research area covers business law, international investment law in particular Chinese foreign investment law, and comparative law.
Author in various legal journals in Latin America on issues of business law, gender equality, and entrepreneurship. Her area of interest is the internationalization of companies, as well as a digital business. Her career is committed to defending women and supporting women’s economic empowerment.

Blog Posts

Fabara, Carolina

The Future of Payments with New Financial Technologies (with Spanish Translation)

Over the past few years, new financial technologies (FinTech) have evolved rapidly around the world. Digital innovation has brought major improvements in connectivity and reduced transaction costs. It is transforming financial services as a whole. Innovations such as mobile money, peer-to-peer (P2P) or marketplace lending, Robo-advice, insurance technology, and crypto-assets have emerged. In the last decade, fintech has already driven greater access to, and convenience of, financial services for retail users. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services, and distributed ledger technology (DLT) are transforming wholesale markets in areas as diverse as financial market trading and regulatory and supervisory technology (RegTech and SupTech). The diversification of the financial sector has increased in both developed and emerging markets. Nowadays there are many different types and sizes of fintech and big tech, offering a wide range of financial services. Some remain focused on a single product or service, while others have leveraged their initial successes to broaden their service offerings such as PayPal. Some FinTech are converting to banks, while others have become service providers to, or value chain partners with banks. Depending on licensing approaches in different jurisdictions, a range of digital-only or digital-mainly neo-banks have emerged. Payments, loans, and deposit-taking services may be provided by specialized payment service providers (fintech), e-commerce platforms (big techs), and other non-banks. In this context, it is important that regulators develop approaches to ensure a level playing field and provide clear requirements for licensing. While FinTech can add efficiency to the delivery of banking services, if banking is to become entirely virtual, there will be significant impacts on underprivileged sectors of society. Moreover, FinTech can enable better management of financial risks but it cannot essentially change the nature or extent of financial risks. And while FinTech can improve the delivery of financial products, they cannot be left to create the regulatory and risk management frameworks to match. Fintech has the potential to facilitate lower-cost, faster, convenient, secure, and multi-channel accessibility to payments. It can also extend financial services to unbanked populations; to lower SME funding gaps; to reduce costs and delays in cross-border remittance markets, and to improve efficiencies and transparency in government operations that help reduce corruption. The technologies can help improve collateral management, fraud detection, credit risk management, and regulatory compliance. Through these channels, fintech has the potential to reduce income disparities and enhance financial inclusion as well as promote inclusive growth and financial stability. For digital transformation to benefit everyone and help tackle financial exclusion, stakeholders need to come together. Governments need to keep expanding internet access and help support initiatives in financial and digital education. Close attention must be paid – and funding made available – to overcome barriers to digital financial inclusion, including not only access to resources such as smartphones and the internet, but also digital and financial literacy, and potential biases amplified by new data sources and analytics. Financial institutions, new and established, need to seize this chance to innovate while national and international organisations need to coordinate to

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Saghir, Wael

Relationship between Going Cashless and Social Marginalisation

As we are becoming more reliant on technology, particularly following the COVID19 pandemic, our societies have moved ever closer to becoming cashless. Those who are struck by poverty, without disposable funds, or who live in rural areas are often affected, having limited access to credit, smart devices and secure internet connections.

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Fabara, Carolina

Can Digital Payments Replace Cash Payments?

Technology has revolutionized the way people shop, sell, and save, and people are increasingly moving away from using cash. Even though, the rise of these digital payment systems and electronic banking has led to debates among economists, business experts, and the public about the future of cash. Recent studies states show cashless transaction volumes will increase by over 80% to 1.9 trillion by 2025 and that digital payments per person will triple by 2030.

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Saghir, Wael

The Move to Cashless Societies

The evolution of money as a payment method goes back to 5th century B.C. where what we know as coins today were first used. This transition from the old form of payment through bartering to the use of a universal payment method was industrialised in the ancient European continent in a region called Lydia where coinage manufacturing (minting) first took place.

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