Bob Wessels is emeritus professor of International Insolvency Law, University of Leiden, Leiden Law School, The Netherlands. Prior to this Leiden chair (2007-2014), he was Professor of Civil and Commercial Law, Vrije University in Amsterdam (1988-2008). Since 1995 his professorship was only part-time (one day a week). He retired from academia in 2014. He defended his PhD in an area of the Dutch law of obligations in 1988. His legal graduation dates from 1974 (general civil law) as well as 1977 (civil law notarial law).

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Wessels has over 45 years business law experience, including 13 years as a partner of (predecessors of) Ernst & Young, in Amsterdam and London, including a global managerial function. He was one of the founders/partners of HVG Law (attorneys and civil notaries) in 1992, with five offices in the Netherlands and two in USA (New York City, Chicago). From 2005-2017 he has had his own independent (international) legal practice, acting as expert advisor or expert witness and as (international) arbitrator, mainly in the area of general contract law, restructuring and insolvency law. On matters of business rescue and insolvency he served as consultant to IMF (Indonesia), World Bank (Georgia) and the Dutch Ministry of Justice.

Wessels published (in Dutch) hundreds of articles in leading legal journals and some twenty-five books. For his publications, see https://bobwessels.nl/publications/.

Wessels is expert advisor to the European Commission of the EU regarding matters of bank and (international) corporate restructuring and insolvency, chairman of the Conference of European Restructuring and Insolvency Law (CERIL, independent legal think tank) and mediator at the INSOL International College of Mediation.

Past functions include member of the Joint Board of Appeal of the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs; ESMA, EBA and EIOPA respectively) (2013-2019), Deputy Justice at the Court of Appeal in The Hague (1987-2016), arbitrator and chair Standing arbitration committee Achmea (life- and pension insurance policy’s) (1988-2015), and member of the Ministry of Justice’s Committee to renew the Dutch Bankruptcy Act (2004-2007).

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