A Bocconi Student Promoting Italian Legal Culture at Harvard

DEMETRIO MALTESE, A BOCCONI PHD CANDIDATE AND A FELLOW IN THE PROGRAM ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL , HAS FOUNDED THE HARVARD ITALIAN LAW ASSOCIATION TO ENCOURAGE DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE TWO LEGAL TRADITIONS

Demetrio Maltese, who is completing the Business Law program at the Bocconi PhD School, was awarded a Fulbright–Schuman scholarship last year, allowing him to spend six months at the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School as a fellow, under the supervision of Lucian A. Bebchuk . During his research at Harvard, Demetrio (pictured second from the left) and several other Italian colleagues founded the Harvard Italian Law Association, aiming to promote Italian legal culture at the Law School and, more in general, encourage dialogue between the legal traditions on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first event , on Friday 12 February, will welcome Marco Ventoruzzo, Full Professor of Company and Business Law at Bocconi University and Full Professor at Penn State Law (US). Along with Mark J. Roe from Harvard Law School, he will discuss election systems for managers at listed companies in the US and Italy. The debate will focus on the rules for appointing representatives chosen by minority partners and institutional investors to administration and management bodies. The Italian experience of slate voting is a rather unique example worldwide and, even within diverse economic and institutional contexts, it is of great interest abroad. This is especially true in the United States, where active investors are particularly perceptive to legal instruments that provide them with greater “engagement” in company governance.

After graduating from Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Demetrio Maltese completed an LLM (Master of Law)  at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Soon after, he was awarded a PhD scholarship at Bocconi, where he is completing a dissertation under the guidance of Mario Notari. Last year, he obtained a Stipendium from the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg  where he completed research before leaving for the US. Maltese is a research assistant at Harvard and a teaching assistant at Bocconi.

“This is an initiative that deserves special mention. It is further confirmation of the growing internationalization of Italian legal studies, which have traditionally been linked to domestic matters,” says Ventoruzzo, “and in particular of the increasingly active participation in international legal debate of law students, PhD candidates and faculty at Bocconi.”

 

Ezio Renda

by Ezio Renda
Translated by Jenna Walker