Academic

Pontifical University Comillas, Madrid, Spain (www.upco.es): Degree in Law (1987).

Pontifical University Comillas, Madrid, Spain: Degree in Economics (1988).

Collège d'Europe, Bruges, Belgium (www.coleurop.be): LLM in Hautes Etudes Européennes, 1989.

Professor of Corporate Law, Law School, Pontifical University Comillas.

National Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 2007-08.

Visiting Scholar, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford University, 2007-08.

Rock Center Fellow, Stanford University, 2007-08.

Has published articles as author, co-author or co-editor in newspapers, legal reviews and books (see exhibit).

Professional

Member of the Madrid Bar Association since 1987 (www.icam.es).

Laureate lawyer of the European Commission (open competition Com A/638).

Has wide-ranging corporate and M&A experience, and specialises in private equity, antitrust, litigation and arbitration.

Partner of Ashurst (www.ashurst.com).

Founded the Spanish office of Ashurst in 2001.

Head of the Ashurst Corporate and Litigation and Arbitration departments of the Ashurst Madrid office.

Has worked in corporate, finance and contentious matters for companies like Apax Partners, Coller Capital, TA Associates, Mercapital, Barclays Bank, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland, Stada Arzneimittel, Conserve Italia, Bank of Scotland, ING, ONCE, Anschutz Investments, QXL Ricardo, ACS Dragados, Wella, Rothschild, Cerberus, Morgan Stanley, Candover, Citigroup, TetraPak, Castle Harlan, Ferrovial, etc.

Prior to joining Ashurst, he was a partner at Melchor de las Heras (now, CMS' Albiñana & Suárez de Lezo).

He was also Secretary General of the Spanish State owned TV and radio group Radio Televisión Española (www.rtve.es), the largest media group in Spain.

Mentioned as recommended or leading lawyer in Spain in M&A, Corporate, Restructuring and Insolvency, Private Equity and Media by Chambers Global, Who's Who Legal, Global Counsel 3000, European Legal Experts, Experts Guides Euromoney, Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions Handbook, etc.

Member of the following arbitration courts:

• CIMA, Civil and Commercial Arbitration Court of Madrid (www.cima-arbitraje.com).
• Arbitration Court of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Navigation (www.camaras.org).
• Arbitration Court of the Madrid Bar Association (www.icam.com).
• Spanish-Moroccan Arbitration Court.

Has also acted as arbitrator in the Swiss Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Member of the "Círculo de Empresarios" (www.circulodeempresarios.org), a non-profit, non-partisan and private Spanish association formed by around 200 Spanish business leaders whose companies together employ over 715,000 workers and who share an interest in the major issues affecting the country's economic and social well-being.

Other

Member of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (www.bvca.co.uk)

Born in Madrid, on January 21, 1964. Married. Four children.

Speaks Spanish, English and French.

Publications

• "Culpable Insolvency", International Corporate Rescue, Kluwer Law International, Volume 3, Issue 6, London, 2006.
• "Subordination of claims under the New Insolvency Law", International Corporate Rescue, Kluwer Law International, Volume 3, Issue 5, London, 2006.
• "Understanding the New Insolvency Law", International Corporate Rescue, Kluwer Law International, Volume 3, Issue 2, London, 2006.
• "El libro blanco de la competencia española", Expansión, Madrid, May 31, 2005.
• "Brief Analysis of the new Spanish Insolvency Code", International Corporate Rescue, Kluwer Law International, Volume 2, Issue 4, London, 2005.
• "Comparing civil litigation procedures across Europe", Ashurst, London, 2004.
• "Principios generales y principales novedades de la Nueva Ley Concursal", Ashurst, Madrid, 2004
• "Study on the conditions of claims for damages in case of infringement of the EC competition rules", European Commission, Brussels, August, 2004.
• "Principales novedades de la Ley de Arbitraje", Madrid, June, 2004.
• "Public to Privates in Spain", Ashurst, Madrid, Abril, 2004.
• "A guide to investing in Europe. Spain", BVCA, London, 2004.
• "La polémica modificación de la ley de propiedad intelectual", Expansión, Madrid, April 16, 2003.
• "Derechos audiovisuales de los partidos de fútbol", Expansión, Madrid, January 11, 2003.
• "Nuevo Derecho de las Infraestructuras", Revista del Derecho de las Telecomunicaciones e Infraestructuras en Red (REDETI), Madrid, 2001.
• "Móviles", REDETI, Madrid, April 2001.
• "Liberalizaciones 2000", Fundación de Estudios de Regulación & Editorial Comares, Granada, 2000.
• "Algunas ideas sobre las empresas de Internet y el control de las concentraciones económicas", REDETI, Madrid, October, 2000.
• "Control de fusiones y participaciones empresariales", Expansión, August 2, 2000.

Huda Ahmed is an Iraqi journalist. She had a joint fellowship for the 2007-2008 academic year at CISAC and CDDRL. In 2006-2007 she held the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, sponsored by the International Women's Media Foundation, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ahmed's interests include international relations, ethnic politics and peace, democracy and religion of the West versus the East, and human rights reporting. She is interested in exploring current issues in Iraq related to politics, the status of democracy conflicts, violence, and the impact of war on Iraq.

Prior to her studies in the United States, Ahmed was a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers (formerly Knight Ridder Newspapers) in Baghdad. Beginning in July 2004, she assisted in coverage and translation for a wide range of breaking news and feature stories including the bloody siege of Najaf, Iraq's historic elections, and corruption in the new Iraqi security forces.

She was recognized by Knight Ridder's Washington bureau for extraordinary bravery in covering combat during the siege of Najaf in Southern Iraq.

Ahmed served as a reporter and translator for The Washington Post in Baghdad, where she assisted in covering the search for weapons of mass destruction, looting after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, the secret massacre of students during Hussein's reign, and the abuse of women in the Islamic world among other stories.

Her journalism career began in 1992 when she served as a translator for The Daily Baghdad Observer and Al Jumhurriya Daily, in Baghdad. Earlier in her career, she worked as a translator and a high school teacher in U.A.E, Tunisia, and Libya.

Ahmed, along with 5 other Iraqi journalists from McClatchy's Baghdad bureau, received the Courage in Journalism Award for 2007 from the International Women's Media Foundation.

Zvisinei C. Sandi is a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe and the New School of Social Research's Democracy and Diversity Summer Institute. Zvisinei was a journalist in Zimbabwe, where she was assaulted and persecuted for her views. She has successfully won the lawsuit against the state machinery for unfair labor practices and human rights violations. She also taught Social and Political Philosophy at the Zimbabwe Open University as well as Masvingo State University. She was the Secretary General of the human rights watchdog, the Society for Gender Justice. She was elected into the executive council of the lecturers union where she led a strike that virtually paralyzed the State owned University system between February and June of 2007. Because of her pro-democracy activities, she was captured and tortured by the notorious War Veterans militia. Zvisinei is currently a visiting scholar at CDDRL, after initially coming to Stanford as one of our Summer Fellows 2007.

Weitseng Chen, a Fulbright scholar, will receive his JSD from Yale Law School in October 2007. His recent research focuses on China's foreign direct investment and property rights transition, the economic behaviors of ethnic foreign investors in China, and a China-Taiwan comparison on their rule of law transition. Prior to his Yale education, Chen practiced law in Taiwan in diverse fields such as Internet and information technology industry, the private sector and public interest affairs, governmental reforms, and international NGO affairs.

Weitseng Chen's recent publications include "East Asian Model and Rule of Law (with Randall Peerenboom, a to be published book chapter)", "WTO: Time's Up for Chinese Banks - China's Banking Reform and Non-Performing Loans Disposal" (Chicago Journal of International Law), "State, Market, and the Law: Law and Development in Taiwan" (Chinese) (Journal of the Humanities & Social Science), and a book titled "Law and Economic Miracle: Interaction between Taiwan's Economic Development and Economic & Trade Laws after WWII." (Chinese).

Hicham Ben Abdallah received his B.A. in Politics in 1985 from Princeton University, and his M.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1997. His interest is in the politics of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

He has lectured in numerous universities and think tanks in North America and Europe. His work for the advancement of peace and conflict resolution has brought him to Kosovo as a special Assistant to Bernard Kouchner, and to Nigeria and Palestine as an election observer with the Carter Center. He has published in journals such Le Monde,  Le Monde Diplomatique,Pouvoirs, Le Debat, The Journal of Democracy, The New York Times, El Pais, and El Quds.

In 2010 he has founded the Moulay Hicham Foundation which conducts social science research on the MENA region. He is also an entrepreneur with interests in agriculture, real estate, and renewable energies. His company, Al Tayyar Energy, has a number of clean energy projects in Asia and Europe. 

Nozima Kamalova, a human rights defender and lawyer, is the director of the Public Defense Office of the Tashkent Board of Lawyers and the founding chair of the Legal Aid Society of Uzbekistan, a nongovernmental organization that works with international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, to safeguard and promote the rule of law. Kamalova has been instrumental in the revision of several Uzbek laws related to torture and human rights, and her lobbying activities have influenced much policy and legislation adopted both internationally and in Uzbekistan. She has served as a chief consultant to agencies of the United Nations, and in since 2002, she submitted a number of alternative reports to the United Nation's Committees on human rights violations and concerning the use of torture in her country.

In 2005, Kamalova was awarded the Chevening Fellowship by the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 2003, she completed an advanced course on human rights in Poland at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and in 1999, she was an International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) Fellow. She holds a diploma with highest honors in law from Tashkent State University.

During her fellowship at CDDRL (2007-09), Kamalova continued her research on how Western antiterrorism policies limit civil liberties and freedoms in less-developed, transitional countries. She studied the impact of the war against terrorism on authoritarian countries, with Uzbekistan as an example, and will develop recommendations for legislation and practice.