Roundtable to Examine Future of Finance and Capital Markets

Jerome Powell, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, will deliver the keynote address on March 3, 2017 at the Weil, Gotshal & Manges Roundtable at Yale Law School on “Blockchain: The Future of Finance and Capital Markets?,” organized by the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Blockchain is a technology that enables the creation of a distributed ledger in which transactions are encrypted and recorded chronologically. The event will take place in room 127 at Yale Law School from 9 am to 4 pm and is open to the Yale community and invited guests.

The Roundtable will begin with a brief introduction on the topic by Nancy Liao ’05, John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Executive Director, YLS Center for the Study of Corporate Law. “Blockchain has been described as a foundational technology, and the Roundtable aims to examine that claim.  The introduction will facilitate that examination by providing a common vocabulary around distributed ledgers, distributed ledger technologies, and blockchain. The introduction will also emphasize that use dictates distributed ledger design.” 

The first morning panel will discuss Increasing Payment Efficiency and include Jessie Cheng, Deputy General Counsel, Ripple; Rob Hunter, Executive Managing Director and Deputy General Counsel, The Clearing House; Jonathan Macey ‘82, YLS Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law; Joseph Torregrossa, Counsel and Assistant Vice President, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and moderator Nancy Liao.

The second morning panel will focus on Post-Trade Clearing and Settlement and panelists will include Chris Church​, Chief Business Development Officer, Digital Asset Holdings; Maureen O’Hara, Robert W. Purcell Professor of Finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University; Rebecca Simmons​, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Mark Wetjen, Head of Global Public Policy, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation; and moderator Roberta Romano ’80, YLS Sterling Professor of Law and Director, YLS Center for the Study of Corporate Law.

Governor Powell will deliver the keynote address during lunch.

The third panel will take place in the afternoon and focus on Smart Contracts, featuring panelists Christian Catalini, Fred Kayne (1960) Career Development Professor of Entrepreneurship and Assistant Professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management, MIT Sloan School of Management; Charley Cooper, Managing Director, R3; Nina Kilbride, Head of Legal Engineering, Monax Industries, Ltd.; Scott O’Malia, Chief Executive Officer, International Swaps and Derivatives Association; and moderator Alexander Dyck, Professor in Corporate Governance and Professor of Finance and Business Economics, the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management, Academic Director of the Director’s Education Program, and YLS Visiting Senior Research Scholar.

The final panel will be on The Central Bank Perspective and feature panelists William Goetzmann, Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies, Yale School of Management and Director, the International Center for Finance; Andrew Hauser, Executive Director, Banking, Payments and Financial Resilience, Bank of England; Ross Leckow, Deputy General Counsel, International Monetary Fund; Carolyn Wilkins, Senior Deputy Governor, Bank of Canada; and moderator Gregory Fleming ‘88, YLS Senior Research Scholar in Law, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, YLS Center for the Study of Corporate Law, and YLS Visiting Lecturer in Law.

The mission of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law is to enhance the quality of students' educational experience and of faculty research in the business law area, by increasing exposure to and engagement with contemporary business law issues. ,The Weil Gotshal & Manges roundtable is an annual one-day event that seeks to foster a dialogue on the important business law issues of the day through presentations of scholarly papers and panel discussions. Leading corporate lawyers, members of the business and investment communities, public officials, and scholars participate in the roundtables. The Center is led by Sterling Professor of Law Roberta Romano ’80 and John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Executive Director Nancy Liao ’05.

For media interested in attending the keynote and/or the panel on The Central Bank Perspective, please contact debra.kroszner@yale.edu.