Law and Geoeconomics of Investment Screening

Jens Hillebrand Pohl is a leading expert in geolegal studies, focusing on the legal aspect of geoeconomics. His research examines economic lawfare, i.e., how legal and regulatory frameworks are leveraged as instruments of geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy. He explores the critical role of legal systems in national security, economic regulation, and the intersection of law and economic power. Jens is the Director of the Helsinki Geoeconomics School and co-founder of The Geoeconomics Society. Through his leadership and publications, he has shaped academic and practical discourse in geoeconomics. He has published extensively in the field, with over 30 articles and four edited volumes, including Weaponising Investments. Jens is also the co-founding Editorial Director and Chair of the Law & Geoeconomics Journal, published by De Gruyter Brill, and the founding series editor of Springer Studies in Law & Geoeconomics. Jens began his career as a practicing lawyer in New York, where he advised on high-profile legal matters, including the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, and, later, on the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism. He has lectured at leading universities in Europe, North America, and Asia, and has held adjunct professorships and other academic appointments at Maastricht University, United Nations University, Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law, and the World Trade Institute, among others. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Jens holds a Ph.D. in law from Maastricht University, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a Master’s degree in Economics and Business from the Stockholm School of Economics, with further degrees and studies at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice, Stockholm University, and Uppsala University. He is a member of the bar in New York and an English and Irish-qualified solicitor.Steffen Hindelang is Professor of International Investment and Trade Law at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is also the Executive Director of the CELIS Institute, an independent, non-profit, non-partisan research enterprise dedicated to promoting better regulation of foreign investment in the context of security, public order and competitiveness. Steffen has advised the EU, European governments as well as companies on investment review regimes, international investment disputes, and international organisations on the reform of the current international investment law regime. He has been repeatedly invited by the European Parliament's INTA Committee to prepare studies on the development of the EU's Common Commercial Policy. He frequently acts as an expert advisor before international tribunals and national courts and has served as an ICSID arbitrator.Thomas Papadopoulos is an Associate Professor of Business Law at the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus. He received his DPhil in Law from the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, UK (2010). He received a degree of Magister Juris-MJur (2006) and a degree of MPhil in Law (2007) from the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, UK. He also received his LLB with Distinction (ranked 1st) from the Department of Law, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2005). Previously, he was a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School, USA (2009-10). He is also a Visiting Professor at University of Trento and at International Hellenic University, a Teaching Fellow at Open University of Cyprus and an Attorney at law (Greece). Additionally, he was a Visiting Researcher at King’s College London and at Max Planck Institute Luxembourg. Moreover, he is a member of the editorial board of European Company Law (ECL) Journal published by Kluwer and a member of the editorial board of European Company Case Law (ECCL) Review published by Nomos. He is a country reporter-legal expert for Cyprus at the European Model Company Act (EMCA) Group, the Common European Law on Investment Screening (CELIS) Institute, the Covid-19 Litigation Project of the University of Trento, Italy and research projects of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). He is also a member of the academic board of European Banking Institute (EBI). He was awarded the “Cyprus Research Award-Young Researcher (2014)” of the Research Promotion Foundation of the Republic of Cyprus (category of “Social Sciences & Humanities”). His articles were published in many top international law journals. He is also the author of the following monograph published by Kluwer: EU Law and the Harmonization of Takeovers in the Internal Market, 2010, Kluwer. Moreover, he is the editor of the following book published by Springer: Cross-Border Mergers - EU Perspectives and National Experiences, 2019, Springer. In February 2023, his 1280 pages book on Cyprus Company Law was published in Greek by Nomiki Vivliothiki publications.Janosch Wiesenthal is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the University of Lüneburg (Chair for Public Law, Public International Law and Comparative Law) currently working on a thesis which focuses on Foreign Investment Screening. He holds a PhD-scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes). Janosch is also Deputy Assistant Director of the CELIS Institute, an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research enterprise dedicated to promoting better regulation of foreign investment in light of security and public order concerns. He co-founded the CELIS Early-Career Scholars’ and Practitioners’ Network on the Law and Practice of Economic Warfare (CELIS NOW) and the CELIS Blog. Janosch completed his law studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin by passing the first state examination (Erstes Staatsexamen). He also studied at the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas, where he specialised in international law and obtained both the Licence en droit as well as the Maîtrise en droit.

• Privatizations, Golden Shares, Investment Screening and Bailout Agreements in the Context Of Article 345 TFEU: The Limits of Internal Market Law by Thomas Papadopoulos.- A Goldilocks’ Conundrum: Mitigating National Security Risks in the United States, France, Germany, and United Kingdom by Tatiana Sullivan, Pascal Bine, Wesley Lainé, Matthias Horbach, Jermaine A. Washington, and Jason Hewitt.- FDI Control and Parallel Sector-Specific Screening Procedures – are there Ways to Increase Efficiency? by Henning Berger and  Christoph Arhold.- The Role of Remedies to Mitigate National Security Concerns in Germany by Roland M. Stein and  Vanessa Kassem.- The Portuguese Investment Screening Mechanism: Not Much of a Weapon by Suzana Tavares da Silva and Marta Vicente.- Foreign Direct Investment and Financial and Banking Supervision by Federico Riganti.- Certainty and Predictability in FDI Screening Regulations by Andrea Gemmi.- Centralization of Responsibilities for the Screening of Foreign Direct Investments in the European Union and its Member States by Christoph Ludwig.- Open Strategic Autonomy, FDI Screening and Industrial Policy: What Geopolitical Role for The European Commission? by Enrico Tinti.- FDI Screening and the Certification of Electricity and Gas Network Operators in Austria by Daniel Peter Schmidt.- Economic Regulation vis-à-vis Strategic Supervision: Conceptualising a New Administrative Function in a Europeanised Regulatory Space by Andrea Giorgi.