David Donald received his Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University and was licensed to practice law in 1989 in the State of New York. He then practiced international trade and corporate law in Washington DC, Milan and Rome, Italy, and Frankfurt, Germany. David is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Law at The Chinese University of Hong Kong where he taught corporate law and financial regulation from 2008 to 2021. David has practiced law at some of the world's leading law firms. In 2022, David was admitted to practice in the State of Hawai'i. 

David provides legal services to small businesses, drafts estate planning documents and advises on condominium law.

David moved to Honolulu in 2021, after thirteen years at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, following five years at the Institute for Law and Finance of the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where he worked with Andreas Cahn teaching comparative company law and completed a German doctoral degree in law under the supervision of Theodor Baums. 

During the decade before moving to the Goethe University, David practiced banking and securities law in Frankfurt at Hengeler and Shearman & Sterling, corporate and international commercial law in Milan at Graham & James and in Rome at Dobson & Pinci, and international trade law in Washington DC at Willkie Farr.  He holds a JD from Georgetown University, where he was a research assistant for Mark Tushnet, and a PhD in Comparative Literature from SUNY at Buffalo, where he studied critical theory under the supervision of Rodolphe Gasche´. David's undergraduate studies were at Syracuse University, where he took courses mainly in the Maxwell School, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and wrote an honors thesis under the guidance of Ralph Ketcham. 

David's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC19D0NyKxMgmLWLn9QHvhbw

David's Publications:

Journal Articles

Pedagogy as Nudge? When Student Perceptions Spurn Improved Results, 4 Journal on Excellence in College Teaching 131-148 (2020).

Legal System Network Effects and Global Legal Development, 10 Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law 267-306 (2020).

Commercial Law in an Age of Automation: Upstream Planning to Forestall Downstream Transaction Costs, 300 Taiwan Law Review (2020).

Smart Precision Finance for Small Businesses Funding, 21 European Business Organization Law Review 1-19 (2020).

Multilateral Transparency for Securities Markets through DLT (with Mahdi Miraz), 25 Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law 97-154 (2019).

Hong Kong’s Roles in Supporting the Economic Development of China, 6 City University of Hong Kong Law Review 1-27 (2019).

From Block Lords to Blockchain: How Securities Dealers Make Markets, 44 Journal of Corporation Law 29-63 (2018).

Hong Kong’s Public Enforcement Model of Investor Protection (with Paul Cheuk), 4:2 Asian Journal of Law and Society, special section on Law and Economics in (East) Asia, pp. 1-37 (2017).

Conceiving Corporate Governance for an Asian Environment, 12 University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review pp. 88-138 (2016).

Bridging Finance without Fragmentation: A Comparative Look at Market Connectivity in the US, Europe and Asia, 16:2 European Business Organization Law Review pp. 173-201 (2015).

Law in Regression? Impacts of Quantitative Research on Law and Regulation, 2015:2 Columbia Business Law Review 520-612 (2015).

Heart of Darkness: The Problem at the Core of the US Proxy System and Its Solution,” 5:3 Virginia Law & Business Review 41-100 (2011).

Regulating Market Manipulation through an Understanding of Price Creation, 5:1 National Taiwan University Law Review 55-89 (2011).

Approaching Comparative Company Law, 14 Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law 83-178 (2008).

Einige Nachteile der "intermediated" Wertpapierabwicklung und deren Überwindung, 4 DAJV NL 169 (2008).

Die Übertragung von Kapitalmarktpapiere nach dem US-amerikanischen Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), 12 Wertpapier Mitteilungen 526 (2008).

Shareholder Voice and Its Opponents, 5 J. Corporate Law Studies 305 (2005), in earlier draft as Institute for Law and Finance Working Paper Series, Working Paper No. 40 (June 2005).

Applying Germany's Market Manipulation Rules to Disruptive Trades on the Eurex and MTS Platforms, 6 German Law J. 649 (2005).

Die Entwicklung der US-amerikanischen Corporate Governance nach Enron, 15 Wertpapier Mitteilungen 705 (2003).

Some Observations on the Use of Structural and Remedial Measures in American and German Law After Sarbanes-Oxley, 4 German Law J. 127 (2003).

Mergers and Acquisitions in Italy, Italian Supplement to Int'l Fin. L. Rev. (October 1994), co-authored with Gabriele Bernascone and Fillipo Dissertori.

Comments on the Italian Antitrust Law of October 1990, 26 Int'l Law. (1992).

Company Law in the European Community: Toward Supranational Incorporation, 9 Dick. J. Int'l L. (1990).

Taxation for a Single Market: European Community Legislation on Mergers, Distributed Profits, and Intracompany Sales, 22 Law & Pol'y Int'l Bus. (1990).

Toward a Single European Capital Market: The European Economic Community’s Directive to Liberalize Capital Flows, 20 Law & Pol'y Int'l Bus. (1988).

Books

The Political Economy of Financial Regulation, edited with Emilios Avgouleas 530 pp. (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Comparative Company Law: Texts and Cases on the Laws Governing Corporations in Germany, the UK and the USA, 2nd Edition, co-authored with Andreas Cahn 1094 pp. (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

A Financial Centre for Two Empires: Hong Kong’s Corporate, Securities and Tax Laws in Its Transition from Britain to China, with contributions by Wang JiangYu and Jefferson P. VanderWolk (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

The Hong Kong Stock and Futures Exchanges: Law and Microstructure 297 pp. (Sweet & Maxwell, 2012).

Comparative Company Law: Texts and Cases on the Laws Governing Corporations in Germany, the UK and the USA, co-authored with Andreas Cahn 1000 pp. (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Der Einfluss der Wertpapierabwicklung auf die Ausübung von Aktionärsrechten (The Effects of Securities Settlement on the Exercise of Shareholder Rights) (Peter Lang, 2008).

European Union Securities Regulation – in Transition: Key Directives in English and German / Das Kapitalmarktrecht der Europäischen Union im Wandel: Wesentliche Richtlinien in Englisch und Deutsch (Bowne, 2001), co-edited with Derek Savelle.

The Italian Unified Banking and Credit Act (Kluwer/Ipsoa, 1994), translation of Italian law.

Book Chapters and Reviews

"Common Law and the Liberation of Self-Interest from Regulation," in Redefining Comparative Constitutional Law: Essays for Mark Tushnet, eds. Vicki Jackson and Madhav Khosla (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2024).

“The Client Data Windfall Nourishing the Birth of Legal Technologies,” in Data Governance in AI, Fintech and Regtech: Law and Regulation in the Financial Sector, eds. Darbellay and Lee (Edward Elgar, 2022).

“Keep Your ‘Invisible Hands’ to Yourself: Freeing Corporate Governance from the Cult of the ‘Efficient Market’,” in Technology and Corporate Law: How Innovation Shapes Corporate Activity, eds. Goodwin, Langford & Pey (Edward Elgar Publishers, 2021).

“Adding ‘Responsible Owners’ to the ‘Entrepreneurial Owners’ in an International Financial Centre,” in Global Shareholder Stewardship: Complexities, Challenges and Possibilities, eds. Katelouzou & Puchniak (Cambridge University Press, 2020 forthcoming).

“Hong Kong's Fintech Automation: Economic Benefits and Social Risks” in Regulating FinTech in Asia: Global Context, Local Perspectives, eds. Fenwick, van Uytsel and Ying (Springer, forthcoming 2020).

“Networked Securities Markets: From Cross-Listing to Direct Connection” in The Research Handbook on Asian Financial Law 86-100, eds. Doug Arner, Andrew Godwin, Wan Wai Yee and Shen Wei (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2019).

“Information, and the Regulation of Inefficient Markets,” in The Political Economy of Financial Regulation, eds. Emilios Avgouleas and David C. Donald (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

“Evolutionary Development in Hong Kong of Transplanted UK-Origin Takeover Rules,” in Comparative Takeover Regulation: Global and Asian Perspectives, eds. Wan and Varottil (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

“Endowment, Fundamentals and Fashion in the Market for Corporate Law,” in Festschrift for Theodore Baums, eds. Cahn and Siekmann (Mohr Siebeck in Tübingen, 2017).

“’Market Quality’ and Moral Hazard in Financial Market Design”, in Rethinking Global Finance and Its Regulation, eds. Arner, Avgouleas and Buckley (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

“A People’s Market of Hong Kong: Facilitating Crowdfunding of SMEs” (coauthored with G Mok and A Fong), in Finance, Rule of Law and Development in Asia: Perspectives from Singapore, Hong Kong and Mainland China, eds. Hu, Vanhullebusch & Harding (Brill Academic Publishers, 2016).

“Countering corrupting conflicts of interest: the example of Hong Kong,” chapter in Modern Bribery Law: Comparative Perspectives, eds. Alldridge and Horder (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

“Key market institutions and infrastructure in global finance: Securities settlement systems,” in The Handbook of Key Global Financial Markets, Institutions, and Infrastructure 557-564 (Elsevier Inc., 2012).

“Book Review of The German Financial System” (Oxford: 2004), 6 German Law J. 834 (2005), available at www.germanlawjournal.com/.