Focus on EU Regulatory Agenda

Claire Guilbert is an investment management and investment funds lawyer based in Luxembourg.

Claire advises local and international asset managers in the structuring, formation, marketing and organization of regulated and unregulated investment funds, with a particular focus on alternative strategies.

Claire heads the firm’s global asset management regulation stream. She advises clients on European and Luxembourg asset management regulations. Claire has particularly strong knowledge on cross-border management and distribution of funds, marketing to professional and retail investors, investor protection, ESG-related disclosures and AML/CFT rules.

She is a member of the Luxembourg fund associations ALFI and LPEA and is an active member of several committees and working groups therein. Claire is also a member of several associations promoting women in the fund industry (PE for Women, Women in Business, Ladies in Law Luxembourg Association).

Prior to joining Norton Rose Fulbright Claire worked for more than 10 years at one of the largest independent law firms in Luxembourg.

Alexandra Jour-Schroeder is Deputy Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union since March 2021. In her function, Alexandra Jour-Schroeder supervises and monitors the policies of the Directorate General.

Alexandra Jour-Schroeder is a graduate in law. Following initial assignments in the German federal government, she started working for the European Commission in 1996, holding several positions in competition, enterprise and industry policies as well as justice. From 1998 to 2007, she was Member of Cabinet for the Commissioners responsible for regional policy and justice and home affairs and for the Vice-President for enterprise and industry. Since 2017, she has been the Director for Criminal Justice in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, working inter alia on the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office and Anti-Money Laundering policies. From 2018 to 2021, she was also overseeing consumer policies as Acting Deputy Director General in DG Justice and Consumers.

Markus is a qualified German lawyer and has been admitted to practice in July 2000. He started his career in leading German and International law firms in Frankfurt, Munich and London, and became a Partner in 2005.

In 2007, Markus joined KPMG in Germany, where he established and, for more than ten years, headed the Financial Services Legal practice. In 2012, Markus also became co-leader of KPMG Germany’s MiFID II services proposition. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an individually appointed member of the Consultative Working Group (CWG) of ESMA’s Investor Protection and Intermediaries Standing Committee (IPISC).

From 2019 to 2021, Markus worked for PwC in Germany, being responsible for the Financial Services Legal team and practice.

In January 2022, Markus and his team joined Baker Tilly, where they advise German and International clients on regulatory issues as well as strategic and operational matters.

Markus’ areas of expertise comprise governance, risk & compliance both in the financial services industry and the real economy. He has a strong focus on the evolving sustainability agenda (“ESG”) with its core objective of facilitating the net-zero and green transition, both from a regulatory and business perspective.

Markus regularly speaks and publishes on the subject-matter.

Alex Panican is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in Business Strategy, Digital Transformation and Innovation. He’s the Deputy CEO of the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (The LHoFT), where he’s supporting the innovation partnerships between the fintechs and the financial actors.

Alex is also a professor in Business Strategy and Digital Marketing. He holds an MBA in Strategy from the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada. The LHoFT aims to drive digitalisation and innovation in the Luxembourg financial industry and build a collaborative ecosystem of innovators across all sectors of the domestic and international community, including fintech, traditional financial services firms, government, regulators, universities, and investors.

Linda is the EU Policy & Government Relations Lead at Wise, as well as the Co-President of the European Fintech Association (EFA).

The EFA is the first organisation representing Fintech companies of all sizes across the EU. It advocates and represents the interests of Fintechs at the political and policy level, in particular in relation to the EU institutions and other European regulatory bodies. Based in Brussels, Linda advocates for policies that further Wise’s mission of making payments instant, convenient, transparent, and eventually free.

Prior to Wise, Linda worked for public affairs consultancies in Brussels focusing on financial services and tech policy, as well as at the Permanent Representation of Latvia to the EU and the European Commission.

Benoît Theunissen is a Policy and Regulatory Affairs Advisor with Luxembourg for Finance. In this role, he specializes in the analysis and monitoring of regulatory developments spanning local, European, and international spheres. Alongside this, he engages in broader strategic analysis, encompassing political and market intelligence and offering guidance on a range of sustainable finance issues.

Before joining Luxembourg for Finance, Benoît Theunissen worked as a business and financial journalist, including roles as an EU-accredited correspondent and Editor-in-Chief. Additionally, he has experience in financial crime compliance and forensic auditing, where he assisted diverse sectors including oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals. His role extended to aiding financial institutions ranging from depositary and custodian banks to international clearinghouses and retail banks. His focus was on developing and implementing compliance frameworks for anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, anti-corruption, as well as enforcing international sanctions and restrictive measures in various jurisdictions.

Stanislaw Tosza is Associate Professor in Compliance and Law Enforcement. He is also the co-Director of the Bachelor in Law programme. He teaches and researches comparative and European criminal law, white-collar crime, compliance law and cyberlaw.

Before joining the University of Luxembourg, Stanislaw was assistant professor at the Willem Pompe Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at Utrecht University. As visiting researcher he spent also time at Georgetown University Law Center, D.C. (2019), Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University (2017) and Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg i.B. (2008-2010). He defended cum laude his PhD thesis on criminal liability of managers for excessive risk-taking at Utrecht University and at the University of Luxembourg in 2016.

His recent research is focused on access to electronic evidence for criminal investigations, the anti-money laundering reform, enforcement of international sanctions, regulation of the metaverse and in particular the role of private actors in enforcement. Besides numerous articles, Stanislaw published three books: a monography “Criminal Liability of Managers in Europe. Punishing Excessive Risk White Collar Crime” (Hart 2018), and two collective volumes (on white collar crime, Hart 2018, and on combatting illicit trade in tobacco products, Springer 2022). “The Cambridge Handbook of Digital Evidence in Criminal Investigations” that he co-edits with V. Franssen is forthcoming at CUP in 2024.

Since 2019 he has been the Secretary General of the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP).