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Dr. Deirdre Ahern

Associate Professor (Law)
HOUSE 39, COLLEGE

 dahern@tcd.ie

 3531896 3018


Biography

Professor Deirdre Ahern is an Associate Professor in Trinity College Dublin's Law School where she is the Director of Teaching and Learning (Postgraduate). A member of the School's Corporate Law, Governance and Capital Markets Research Group, her primary research areas are corporate law, comparative corporate law, corporate governance and commercial law as well as the emerging area of FinTech regulation. Professor Ahern's research agenda engages with the societal and legal expectations of companies and their directors including the ethical challenges presented by globalisation. She has written extensively nationally and internationally on the theoretical framework surrounding the duties of company directors. She has a track record of publishing cutting-edge transformative work in high impact, top tier national and international journals which is well cited in academic, policy, judicial and legal practice contexts. Based on a sustained research track of field-shaping work she has developed an international reputation as an expert on the law and policy relating to the duties of company directors and has broken new ground in how the discipline of corporate law and corporate governance is thought about. Her book, Directors' Duties; law and Practice (Thomson Roundhall, 2009) was shortlisted for the Kevin Boyle Prize. Professor Ahern was elected to Fellowship of Trinity College in 2012 on the basis of her contribution to scholarship and is an elected member of the Board (governing authority) of Trinity College representing the Fellows. A founding Director of the Irish Corporate Law Forum, Professor Ahern previously worked as a commercial solicitor with A&L Goodbody and KPMG and both as a researcher and principal officer with the Law Reform Commission. Professor Ahern is co-editor of the Irish Business Law Review and sits on the editorial boards of The Company Lawyer and the Journal of Business Law. She is a contributing editor to Gore-Browne on Companies. Deirdre has served as Secretary and President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers and as President of Trinity Women Graduates.

Research Tags

  BOARDS OF DIRECTORS   Business/Corporate Law   Comparative Company Law   Corporate Governance   FinTech Regulation   GENDER QUOTAS ON BOARDS

Research Projects

 CSRxChange: Constructing Regulatory, Reporting and Accreditation Tools for Corpoate Social Responsibility
 An Examination of the Shareholders' Right Directive
 The Legal Duties of Nominee Directors

Representations

Details Date
Co-editor of the Irish Business Law Review 2015 -
Director of the Irish Corporate Law Forum http://www.iclf.ie/ 2010 to date
President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers 2011-2012
Secretary of the Irish Association of Law Teachers 2009 to November 2011
Member of the Steering Committee of the Trinity Consortium on Ageing 2007 to date
Member of the Quality Committeee, TCD From 2009
Member of the Law Society Business Law Committee 2006 to 2009
Member of the Law Reform Commission's Working Group on Vulnerable Adults and the Law 2005 to 2006
Member of the Research Ethics Committee of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland's Faculty of Public Health Medicine 2006 to 2007

Languages

Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Medium Medium Medium
Spanish Medium Basic Basic

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details Date From Date To
Member of the Law Society of Ireland
Member of the Society of Legal Scholars 2006 to date
Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute
Deirdre Ahern, The Mythical Value of Voice and Stewardship in the EU Directive On Long-Term Shareholder Engagement: Rights Do Not An Engaged Shareholder Make, Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, 20, 2018, 88 - 115, Notes: [ https://doi.org/10.1017/cel.2018.8], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Deirdre Ahern, Regulatory Arbitrage in a FinTech World: Devising an Optimal EU Regulatory Response to Crowdlending, Journal of Business Law, (3), 2018, p193 - 214, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Deirdre Ahern, Regulatory Arbitrage in a FinTech World: Devising an Optimal EU Regulatory Response to Crowdlending European Banking Institute Working Paper Series No.24, 2018, Working Paper, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text
Deirdre Ahern, "The Mythical Value of Voice and Stewardship in the EU Directive On Long-Term Shareholder Engagement: Rights Do Not An Engaged Shareholder Make" Working Paper No.32 Stanford-Vienna EU Law Working Paper Series.32 , 2018, Working Paper, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
The Societas Unius Personae: Using the Single-Member Company as a Vehicle for EU Private Company Law Reform, Some Critical Reflections on Regulatory Approach in, editor(s)A.J. Viera Gonzalez and C. Teichmann , Private Companies in Europe: the Societas Personae (SUP) and the Recent Developments in the EU Member States, Navarra, Spain, Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, 2016, pp55 - 87, [Ahern, Deirdre], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Deirdre Ahern, Turning Up the Heat? EU Sustainability Goals and the Role of Reporting under the Non-Financial Reporting Directive, European Company and Financial Law Review, 13, (4), 2016, p599 - 630, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ahern, Deirdre, The EU, Close Corporations and Member State Sovereignty: Too Close for Comfort? Reflections on the Evolving Societas Unius Personae Proposal, Irish Business Law Review, 3, (1), 2016, p21 - 35, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text
Close Corporations: A Common Law World Perspective: the Case of Ireland in, editor(s)Jorge Viera Gonzales and Christoph Teichmann , Private Company Law Reform: The Race of Flexibility, Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, 2015, pp243 - 283, [Deirdre Ahern], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Irish Business Law Review, Ireland, Clarus Press, [eds.], 2014, Editorial Board, PUBLISHED  URL
Deirdre Ahern, "Codification of Company Law: Taking Stock of the Companies Act 2006", Statute Law Review, 35, (1), 2014, p1 - 14, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text
  

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Deirdre, Equal in Name: The Limits of Law, Then and Now, Me Too, Then and Now, Trinity Long Room Hub, 7 March , 2018, Trinity Long Room Hub, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Deirdre Ahern, Conceptualising Overreach in the English Corporate Opportunities Doctrine, Travers Smith Seminar, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, 7 November , 2017, University of Cambridge, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Ahern, Deirdre, Encouraging Socially Responsible Corporations: Will the Non-Financial Reporting Directive Help? , Corporate and Finance Law Summer School, National College of Ireland, 14 August 2017, 2017, European Law Students Association, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Nominee Directors, Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 and Divided Loyalties: A Story of Legal Lag, Herbert Smith Freehills, 20 October , 2016, Herbert Smith Freehills, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Ahern, Deirdre, Realising the Leadership Potential of Women in Business: Are Quotas Really the Answer?, Graduate Women International Third Triennial, Cape Town Convention Centre, 24 August 2016, 2016, Meeting Abstract, PUBLISHED
Deirdre Ahern, Mandating Sustainability Reporting: The Non-Financial Reporting Directive as a Regulatory Tool to Enhance Corporate Engagement with the EU Sustainability Agenda, Constructing Regulatory, Reporting and Accreditation Tools for Corporate Social Respnsibility, Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin, 17 September 2015, 2015, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Deirdre Ahern, Promoting Gender Diversity: Some Reflections on Listed Companies' Approach to Diversity in their Annual Reports, Women on Boards, Irish Women Lawyers' Association, Law Society Dublin, 10 December 2014, 2014, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Deirdre Ahern, The Commercial Court, Review of The Commercial Court, by Stephen Dowling , The Irish Jurist, 51, 2014, p211-212 , Review, PUBLISHED
Directors - Appointment, Removal and Vacation of Office in, editor(s)A. Allcock , Gore-Browne on Companies, Bristol, Jordans, 2013, [Deirdre Ahern], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Management of a Company in, editor(s)A. Allcock , Gore-Browne on Companies, Bristol, Jordans, 2013, [Deirdre Ahern], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

  

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Awards and Honours

Award Date
Fellow, Trinity College Dublin 2012
Directors' Duties: Law and Practice shortlisted for Kevin Boyle Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2011
Visiting Scholar, Duke University 2013
Herbert Smith Visitng Fellow, Faculty of Law, Cambridge University 2016
Highly Commended, Provost's Teaching Awards 2016

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

My research interests are corporate law (with a special focus on directors' duties) and corporate governance. I have supervised postgraduate research on company charges, board diversity, corporate governance of state-owned enterprises and corporate rescue. I have built an academic reputation in the field of corporate law and governance, and more particularly, as a specialist on the law relating to the duties of directors. This has been achieved by means of a sustained track of programmatic research on the legal duties of directors which has resulted in a series of specialist high quality research outputs in excellent academic journals. My book, Directors' Duties: Law and Practice (Thomson Round Hall, 2009) made a significant contribution by filling a substantial gap in scholarship and understanding of the law in this area. Collaborative research undertaken on listed companies' engagement with diversity was sponsored by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation was innovative in how it examined impression management by companies in their annual reports concerning engagement with diversity. The findings of the multi-jurisdictional study were published in a working paper of the European Corporate Governance Institute. Current research work is focused on the challenges of measuring companies' commitment to corporate social responsibility as well as ongoing projects concerning the State's role in relation to ensuring gender balance in company leadership and a post-financial crisis review of directors' duties. I am also engaging with the regulation of the sharing economy, in particular FinTech.