Alain Pietrancosta is Professor of Law at the Sorbonne Law School (University of Paris). He earned a Masters in Business law and his Ph.D. from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, then passed the “Concours d’agrégation” in private law in 2001.

         For the last 25 years, and for 13 years as a Professor “agrégé”, Alain Pietrancosta has been teaching French and European business, company, financial and securities law.

         Professor Pietrancosta is the founder and director of the Masters in Financial Law program at the Sorbonne Law School.

         He is a founding member of the:

• “Forum Europaeum on Corporate Boards” (FECB);
• “European Company Law Experts Group” (ECLE);
• “Financial Law Research Center” of the Sorbonne Law School;
• “Financial Law Association” (ADFIN);
• Labex (“Excellence Research Center”) “Financial Regulation” established in 2011 among the ESCP Europe Business School, the National School of Administration (ENA), the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), the National School of Insurance (ENASS) and three research centers at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne in economics, the Institut de recherche juridique de la Sorbonne (IRJS) in Law, and the Pôle de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences du Management (PRISM), in Management)

         He is a member of:

• the “Legal High Advisory Committee for Financial Markets of Paris”, created by the AMF (French Financial Market Authority) and the Bank of France;
• the “Legal High Advisory Committee for Corporate law”;
• the “Issuers Committee” of the French Financial Market Authority (AMF);
• the ParisEuroplace legal committee.

         Professor Pietrancosta is also:

• Research Associate of the “European Corporate Governance Institute” (ECGI);
• Founder and director of the “Revue Trimestrielle de Droit Financier – Corporate Finance and Capital Markets Law Review” (published by Thomson-Reuters);
• Co-founder, with Prof. Gerard Hertig (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Zurich), of the “Paris Workshop & Lecture Series in Law & Finance”;
• Vice-President and member of the Bureau of the Think Tank “Rules for Growth”;
• Associate Member of the French Center of comparative law, as part of the International Academy of comparative law;
• Head of the scientific committee of the European Association of Banking and Financial Law (2009-2011);
• Professorial Fellow of the Faculty of Law of Tilburg, Anton Philips Professor for the year 2008-2009 (Tilburg Law School’s Center for Company Law).

         Alain Pietrancosta is the author of “The Influence of Financial Imperatives and Market Forces on French Corporate Law” (« Le droit des sociétés sous l’effet des impératifs financiers et boursiers »), Thomson-Transactive, 2000 (1233 pages), which was awarded a prize by the University of Paris 1 and by the European Association of Banking and Financial Law (AEDBF).

         Professor Pietrancosta has published numerous articles with respect to business, corporate, financial, bankruptcy and civil law. He is also co-author of several books, both national and international, and a frequent participant at international conferences in the fields of corporate, financial and securities law.

         He has developed a private practice as a law consultant for the last 15 years. In this capacity, he has served as official in-house law consultant to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Paris since 2006 and has joined Orrick Rambaud Martel in May 2014. He regularly consults for major national and international law firms, corporations, banking and financial institutions, and public entities. He has served on many occasions as a legal adviser for different branches of the French government (Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice, Parliament, and the French market authority, the AMF).

         Professor Pietrancosta has also been retained as an expert witness in several lawsuits before U.S. state and federal courts, involving French contract, corporate, business and bankruptcy law, testifying before juries.