Prof. Dr. iur. Kern Alexander

Join us on Wednesday, 3 December 2025, for a timely lunch seminar hosted by the Competence Center of Sustainability: Finance, Law, Science and the Humanities at the University of Zurich.

Unter the title 'Swiss Sustainable Finance Regulation - At A Crossroads?', this session will explore the latest developments in sustainable finance regulation in Switzerland, including key policy shifts, regulatory challenges and the broater international context.

Speakers: Prof. Dr. iur. Aline Darbellay (University of Zurich) and Dr. Tadas Zukas (Vontobel AG)

Time: 12.15-13.15 pm

Venue: UZH, RAI-F-041, Rämistrasse 74

The event is free and open to the public. Please register via the link below: https://www.ema.uzh.ch/de/register/swiss-sustainable-finance-regulation-at-a-crossroads.html

We look forward to welcoming you! 

Link to flyer

Prof. Alexander was a keynote speaker at the Cross-Border Crypto Conference: Swiss Challenges, Opportunities and the Law, held on 5 November 2025.

In his keynote address, titled “Threading the Needle Between the US Genius Act, the White House’s Recent Policy Proposal and MiCA,” Prof. Alexander discussed how emerging US and EU crypto regulatory frameworks intersect with Swiss law and policy.

The conference brought together experts from academia, industry, and government to examine developments in cross-border crypto services, EU market access for Swiss providers, and tokenisation across jurisdictions.

link to Keynote and Panel Discussion

link to conference

Professor Alexander gives testimony before the British House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee on how increased bank capital requirements have contributed to shadow bank lending and related financial stability risks. Recording of Session

Professor Alexander gave the keynote at the University of Madrid Carlos III Annual Colloquium on the Law of EU Economic Governancy (21 March 2025) on the The Federal Reserve and the ECB  in Permanent Emergency? Testing the limits of legitimacy and efficacy of monetary policy

Professor Alexander comments on the legal risks for sanctions of US-owned and controlled Swiss banks who are custodians for Swiss pension assets

Risiko Donald Trump: Pensionskasse in Zürich lässt 32 Milliarden von US-Bank verwahren, Tagesanzeiger

As Director he will coordinate interdisciplinary research and teaching across several UZH faculties and conduct research in law and finance as it relates to sustainability.

Center of Competence for Sustainable Finance

In his testimony Prof. Alexander discusses the difference between primary and secondary objectives in financial regulation and how to manage secondary objectives while achieving primary objectives Full Recording of Session.

The Programme hosts high-level seminars for bank board members and senior managers from many countries and jurisdictions.  During the 2024 programme, we addressed a number of cutting edge issues confronting bank leaders, including strategic issues in a changing global market, climate finance risks, and the opportunities and challenges of digital and blockchain finance. LinkedIn Post

The University of Zurich, Faculty of Law,  welcomes US law professors, practitioners and regulators to address recent developments in corporate law, technology and financial markets regulation.  See programme

May 27th, 2024, 09.00 am - 05.30 pm
University of Zurich
Small Aula, RAA-G-01
Rämistrasse 59, CH-8001 Zurich 

The seminar held on 25th April 2024 was the first in the Queens’ College, University of Cambridge seminar series on Ethics & Financial Innovation, Growth and Stability on 25 April 2024. This seminar series was designed as an academic event to concentrate knowledge and highlight advancements of this rapidly advancing field representing the intersection of the Law, Innovation, Finance and Technology – the very areas of excellence studied at Queens’ College and Cambridge – and highly topical given Legal and Regulatory moves in recent months.

Speakers and Guests, each attending by invitation are subject matter experts and leaders in their respective and complementary areas. The feedback about the Seminar was outstandingly positive. This was the first time they were gathered together in one place to share and discuss their insights with the audience and among each other, and to contribute to a Proceedings of this Seminar intended for publication and for public dissemination. 

Kern Alexander was invited to give the Annual William Strong Lecture on Ethics and the Business Lawyer in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on November 5, 2023.   The title of Professor Alexander’s lecture was ‘Corporate Governance and Sustainability: Justice Strong’s Enduring Influence’

In this year's programme bank board members from around the world participated. During the week a number of cutting edge issues confronting bank leaders, including financial market turbulance caused by the SVB bank failure, strategic issues arising from climate change and evolving risks in digital finance and blockchain were addressed.

The Center for Legal Data Science (CLDS) and the Society of Commercial and Financial Law (SCFL), in association with Loyens & Loeff, invites academics, scholars, and practitioners with diverse perspectives from the civil and common law to present papers on recent developments in commercial and financial law.

Please submit your abstract of approx. 500 words (2'500 characters) by December 31, 2023 to the SCFL Secretariat at lst.alexander@rwi.uzh.ch. Submission of a full paper before the conference is optional. The Editorial Board will confirm whether your proposal is accepted by Mid January 2024.

Conference 2024 - Call for Abstracts

Credit Suisse Collapse, And Switzerland went back to Making Money

“The regulatory culture in Switzerland is weak and not based on a meaningful set of rules,” says Kern Alexander, chair of the law and finance program at the University of Zurich, “but instead on a light touch principles regime that leaves the regulator too much discretion not to take action and to allow problems to fester until they reach a breaking point.”

 Bloomberg Article, 4 August 2023

Monday, April 3rd 2023 at 12:15pm in RAA-G-01

(extra credits will be provided for the students attending the event)

The International Monetary Fund invited Kern Alexander to present his paper ‘Banking Regulation and Climate Change’ at a high level seminar hosted by the IMF at its headquarters in Washington DC on 29-30 June 2022.

Kern Alexander was Co-Director of the 2022 Oxford Bank Governance Programme held at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. Participants included directors and senior managers from leading banks and investment firms in Europe, the UK, Asia and Africa. Prof. Alexander led discussions on bank strategy, regulation and the legal duties of directors. Sustainable finance and cryptocurrencies were also important themes addressed throughout the week.  

Prof. Dr. Kern Alexander will be giving a keynote lecture on sustainable finance and disclosures at the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities high-level conference on Financial Education and Literacy.

Prof. Kern Alexander gave the keynote lecture at the UBS Sustainable Finance Impact conference on November 4th 2021. He discussed recent developments in sustainable finance regulation in Europe and Switzerland and the preliminary results of his study analysing the preferences, attitudes and objectives of UBS customers towards sustainable finance and related legal developments in Switzerland.

We are pleased to invite you to the conference "International Financial Regulation and Sustainability - Implementation and Enforcement Challenges". The conference takes place virtually on 9 November 2021. If you are interested in virtually participating in the conference, please register by clicking on the following link: https://bit.ly/2Zrf6XL

Professor Alexander's most recent editorial blog piece for EU Law Live, commenting on the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in Pintar and Others v. Slovenia.

Join us for the exclusive UBS Webinar on “Sustainable investing: Freestyle today and mandatory tomorrow?” - 10 June 2021, 8:30-9:50

The increasing pressure that pension funds are experiencing today could soon be underpinned by further regulations from the legislator. What can institutional investors and asset managers in Switzerland expect? A review by Salome Kohler. 

This is part of the larger Research Report on Investor Perceptions of Swiss Sustainable Finance, conducted by Prof. Alexander and his team, on behalf of UBS.

Xenia Karametaxas and Kern Alexander published a book chapter on 'Digital Transformation and Financial Inclusion' in the Routledge Handbook of Financial Technology and Law (2021). The chapter explores some of the main regulatory concerns and market barriers created by the digital transformation of the financial services industry and the implications for a more socially inclusive financial system, particularly in developing and emerging market countries.

There will be two online book launches: at UCL on 24 June, 17:00-19:00 and at IALS on 3 September, 9:30-11:30.

Kern Alexander was invited to give a lecture on 'Financial Inclusion and Proportionality' on April 22, 2021 at the House for Sustainable Governance and Markets (HSGM) at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance of the University of Luxembourg as part of the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative (LSFI).

Join us for the Geneva-Zurich Seminar Series on Sustainable Finance, with a special focus on "Sustainable Finance and Digitalisation" via Zoom.

Date: 25th March 2021

13:15 – 17:15 (UTC/GMT +1)

Hosted by: The University of Zurich & the University of Geneva

Scientific Committee: Dr. Xenia Karametaxas / Prof. Aline Darbellay / Prof. Kern Alexander

Link to the Programme

At the EBI Annual Conference 2021, Professor Alexander, along with Nicolas Veron and Professor Grünewald, will be holding a joint panel on the topic of "Flexibility and forbearance: Supporting the economy without endangering prudence". The Conference will be held on 11 February 2021; the panel will be from 16:20-16:50.

Professor Alexander gave a presentation at the virtual EUTIP Network Conference: The Future of EU Trade and Investment Policy, which was held on 14 January 2021 in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and the IFW Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union.

Call for papers for the 2nd Geneva-Zurich Seminar on Sustainable Finance at the University of Zurich - 25 March 2021 on Sustainable Finance and Digitalisation.

Submit abstracts no later than 1 February 2021.

Click here for more information

We are very pleased to be a part of the Kyoto University - UZH partnership, where Dr Karametaxas presented on "Digital Transformation and Financial Inclusion" in the Virtual Workshop – Kyoto University and University of Zurich “Advanced Technology and Law”, organised by Prof Peter Picht and Prof Tatsuhiko Inatani. 

Link

Professor Kern Alexander comments on the impact of the Responsible Business Initiative on Swiss companies.

Click here for more information

'The Challenges of Bank ESG Investment Strategy' webinar was hosted by Professor Kern Alexander via an online zoom webinar on 29th October 2020, 1-2pm GMT, and featured as the speaker Dr Karsten Guettler, Senior ESG Investment Specialist from the UBS, in collaboration with University of Oxford Saïd Business School.

Watch it here

Prof. Alexander and Dr. Karametaxas, founders of SUSFIN, in collaboration with Ben Mansfield (Director and Founder, RCDC) and Dr. Lindsay Blair Howe (ETH) from the RCDC will be hosting a seminar on Blended Finance and Transforming Urban Areas at the University of Zurich Law Faculty.

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Date: Monday, 21 September 2020

Time: 16:00-18:00 CEST

Room: RAI-F-041

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Click here to watch the presentation.

The Center of Competence for Sustainable Finance at the University of Zurich published an article on “Sustainability is Price Stability — Covid-19 Crisis Pushes the ECB to Re-evaluate Inflation Policy” on 11 June 2020, citing Professor Kern Alexander and his ECB Report co-authored with Professor Rosa María Lastra.

On 4 June 2020, the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) is holding a hearing entitled 'The European Central Bank's Mandate: Perspectives on General Economic Policies'.  Kern Alexander and Rosa Maria Lastra will give evidence at the hearing based on their ECON report 'The ECB Mandate: Perspectives on Sustainability and Solidarity' (June 2020).   

Click here for the hearing's live streaming link

Programme​​​​​​​

On 13 November 2019, Prof. Alexander presented on 'Brexit: Consequences for Europe and Switzerland' at the CFA Society Switzerland in Zurich.

Prof. Alexander and Dr. Karametaxas represented the Faculty of Law at the R20 Austrian World Summit 2019 in Vienna on 28 and 29 May 2019. In the Breakout Session "Blended Finance", Prof. Alexander served as an expert on Sustainable Finance. The efforts for a sustainable future continue, and will be the subject of future research.

At the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva on 1 and 2 May 2019, Kern Alexander speaks on 'Digital Financial Services and Financial Inclusion'.  The conference was attended by academics, trade policy representatives and regulators from many countries, including China, Nigeria, Indonesia and Mexico, and the European Commission representing EU states.  Alexander led a discussion on how digital financial services can be regulated to support economic growth.  Also on the panel (from the left) is Ms Lee Tuthill, Counselor, World Trade Organisation Division on Trade in Services,  Professor Alexander, and Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director, UN Division on International Trade and Commodities.

Kern Alexander lectures on the risk of Brexit for financial stability