Guest Lecture with Dominik Skauradszun
Nottingham Law School welcomes Professor Dr Dominik Skauradszun to deliver a Guest Lecture to postgraduate students.
On 27 February, Professor Dr Dominik Skauradszun from Fulda University and Nottingham Law School (NLS) Visiting Professor delivered a Guest Lecture to full-time students on the Regulation of Crypto Assets and Blockchain module.
Professor Skauradszun has been a Professor of Civil Law, Civil Procedure and Corporate Law since 2014. He received his doctorate from the University of Tübingen with a thesis on civil procedure law, and his habilitation from the University of Bielefeld with a habilitation thesis on the doctrine of resolutions.
He has published over 130 works, including 70 publications on insolvency and restructuring law. He was appointed Visiting Professor of insolvency law at Nottingham Law School in 2020.
On 22 November 2022, the Hessian Judges Election Committee approved the proposal by the Hessian Ministry of
Justice, to appoint Dominik Skauradszun as judge in a second main office. Justice Minister Professor Dr Roman Posek subsequently appointed Professor Skauradszun as a lifetime judge at the Higher Regional Court (Court of Appeal) effective from 1 January 2023.
After twelve years of working together, two of which I was honoured to spend as a Visiting Professor at Nottingham Law School, I am still excited to report to Nottingham students on the latest findings of our research - this time hand in hand with my PhD candidate Johannes Schroeder. We talked about crypto service providers such as crypto custodians in financial distress and possible solutions to protect customers who have invested in cryptocurrencies and are now worried about their assets. This topic was a perfect fit for the newly designed module on the regulation of crypto-assets and blockchain.
Professor Dr. Dominik Skauradszun
The Regulation of Crypto Assets and Blockchain module, delivered completely online, was designed over the summer by NLS lecturers Akrum El Menshawy and Hakan Sahin.
It focuses on a theoretical discussion of regulation in this field and actively encourages students to bring different jurisdictional and personal beliefs into a discussion-based approach to learning.
The Guest Lecture was delivered for week seven of the module alongside one of Professor Skauradszun's PhD students, Johannes Schroeder. The title of their presentation was 'Crypto-assets, crypto custodians and customer's rights in insolvency proceedings'.
Over two hours, the in-person session included an interactive presentation with two opportunities for breakout rooms utilised. During these breakouts, Professor Skauradszun worked with half the cohort and Johannes worked with the remainder. This culminated in a debate between both sides on the chosen topic.
For the distance learning cohort, Johannes provided a pre-recorded presentation with Professor Skauradszun sending some thought-provoking questions to be posted on the discussion forum for students to engage with in their own time.
The session was a robust one with expert researchers discussing on cryptocurrency particularly in the area of insolvency. The seminar was very engaging and the students were carried along at every step of the seminar. It gave me a strong insight on how the owners of crypto assets may be protected in the event of an insolvency and the approach of the markets in financial instruments and amending Regulation (EU). Furthermore, it gave me a solid foundation of the current European Union and United Kingdom’s regulation on insolvency and how it can be applicable to custodians of cryptocurrencies and assets. I commend the guest lecturers for making the discussion easy to comprehend and interactive especially with the practical example of Coinbase and a sample of its insolvency clause.
Fiyinfoluwa Oyelade, LLM Technology Law student