Edinburgh Law School influences discussions on the growth and shape of Asian Financial Sector

A high level Korean diplomatic mission visited on their request Prof Emilios Avgouleas on Wednesday 19 November 2014 to discuss lessons that Seoul could draw from Edinburgh in its efforts to develop as a major financial centre.

The Korean mission was welcomed by Head of School, Professor Richard Sparks who explained how well placed the Law School is with its strong interdisciplinary academic profile, to provide education and training programmes that could facilitate this purpose.

Moreover, Professor Avgouleas explained to the Korean High Mission which included a Minister from the Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance, how Edinburgh is now in phase two of its long history as a financial services centre. He emphasised that this is probably the better of the two periods because financial stability concerns are no longer a major problem for the Edinburgh industry which is almost exclusively skills-based.

Professor Avgouleas also explained how the traditional Scottish values of trust, prudence, caution, and deep long-term commitment have a strong resonance for the Korean economy, which although maintains a heavy manufacturing industry, is mostly skills-based as Korea is not a resource rich nation. Finally, Professor Avgouleas drew a distinction between long-term productive finance and short-term capital flows which are mostly de-stabilizing.

This is only one manifestation of how the School makes a major contribution to the global finance debate. Another example is
Professor Avgouleas's invitation to offer the concluding remarks at a High Level, invitation-only event on pari passu clauses and the Argentinian debt crisis.

The event was held by the Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) at the Main Oak Room of the Bank of England on 12 November 2014.

The roundtable was chaired by a prominent UK High Court Judge and featured a keynote address by new visiting Professor Lee Buchheit. Professor Avgouleas stressed in his closing remarks the complexity of the situation and the ramifications of NY second circuit judgement as well as the responsibility of the legal profession in tolerating an untenable situation vis-a-vis the use and interpretation of pari passu clauses in sovereign debt issues.

Professor Avgouleas continues as a member of the Sovereign Debt working group of the FMLC that recently upheld the narrow interpretation of the pari passu clauses contrary to the construction given to them by Judge Breisa of the NY court.