Cases such as Enron or Shell show that making the right decisions concerning ethical issues can be critical for the financial success or even the survival of a company. The objective of the Business Ethics course is to provide the theoretical basis and to develop the skills to successfully address such issues. It will give an introduction to the main ideas of a modern conception of business ethics, which is based on the idea that ethics and economics are not necessarily in conflict. The concepts provided will form the basis for the analysis and discussion of typical ethical problems confronted by management. By using the case study method, different issues such as trust, corruption, environmental protection, child labor, relevance of values, human rights and other problems in the process of globalization will be discussed.

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While much progress has been made in the last two decades in the practice and teaching of business level strategy, much less attention has been given to corporate level strategy. More recently, advances in research both in strategy and in economics have led to new approaches and frameworks for the formulation of corporate strategy and the control and coordination of the multi-business corporation. These advances are captured in this course. Starting from the initial premise that competition occurs at the level of the business unit and that value must therefore ultimately be created at the business unit level, the framework seeks to address these fundamental issues:

- How can a corporation create economic value through its multimarket activity along the dimensions of products, regions and functions?

- How should the corporation be structured and managed to realize the benefits of multimarket activity?

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Put simply, data governance is managing data as an enterprise asset and controlling operational risk. It means safeguarding corporate information, keeping auditors and regulators satisfied, and using improved data quality to retain customers and drive new business opportunities.

This workshop-oriented course will explore the six questions every company should ask themselves in order to build an effective Data Governance program:

1. Do you have a Governor?
2. Have you surveyed your situation?
3. Do you have a Data Governance strategy?
4. Have you calculated the value of your data?
5. Do you know the probability of risk?
6. Are you monitoring the efficacy of your controls?

This course will give you practical examples from real world practitioners on how to implement successful Data Governance programs and best practices.  You will learn how to be leaders in this important and emerging field of corporate governance.

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The course deals with the problems and strategies of decision making. In particular, we study interdependent decision making which is an integral part of numerous diverse contexts, at work as well as in our private life: As soon as individuals interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal, dependencies in the actions of the persons involved arise. The fact that individuals in such contexts have different individual objectives may lead to serious conflicts and requires "good" strategic thinking.

The purpose of the course is threefold: Firstly, students will be trained to recognize and formalize situations of interdependent decision-making. The second objective is to introduce in the art of strategic thinking by using game-theoretic concepts. Thirdly, the course offers some methods how to cope with contradicting interests in organizations. The course consists of a lecture and supplementary exercises.

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This course provides students with an in-depth analysis of the four main parameters determining successful management of (investment) banks, i.e. the Risk Management, HR Management, Financial Control and Compliance Management. Identifying, measuring and managing risk is paramount to a bank’s success especially in volatile times as evidenced over the past two years. The course introduces the student to the different types of risk and how to best measure them. Selecting, hiring, retaining, training and mentoring the right people is equally a “conditio sine qua non” in a service industry, where the attitude of an individual and hence the collective culture of a firm will make the difference. Identifying the drivers of success and the source of a bank’s performance is equally challenging, and the course provides students with a tool-box on how to gain a better understanding of a bank’s performance. And last but not least the course looks at the ever increasing challenge of complying with the rules and regulations in what is probably the most heavily regulated industry – banking.

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Effective supply chains ought to be aligned with and support the achievement of the firm’s corporate, business and product strategies, taking into account future opportunities and risks. As such, the task of designing and managing supply chains requires that managers apply strategic, decision making and leadership skills in a supply chain context. The goal of this course is to develop and practice these skills. The topics covered range from fundamental logistics and supply chain concepts (e.g. push vs. pull, postponement) to the development of supply chain typologies, strategies and relationships. Furthermore, the roles and contributions of transportation services and logistics service providers in supply chain management will be discussed.

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The lecture on wealth management introduces students to one of the banking sector with increasing importance, the holistic advice for very wealthy private clients.

The focus will be on:
- the specifics of this clientele
- their needs and
- the various concepts to meet their expectation

To learn about:
- the relevance of wealth management for banking results
- recruiting and educational aspects of HR of banks
- possible future trends of an important growth sector

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The common way to resolve legal disputes is through litigation in state courts by relying on the legal concepts of "right" and "wrong", the validity of the claim, the fact situation and the necessity of production of evidence. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) proposes different methods for out-of court resolution of legal disputes. ADR commonly ranges from negotiation, mediation and conciliation to arbitration. The focus of this class will be on mediation. As an interest-based method of conflict resolution, mediation goes far beyond the above-mentioned legal parameters. It widens the perspective on the conflict, enlarges the matter in dispute and seeks to reach a long lasting and sound common agreement between the parties of a legal dispute. Furthermore, mediation is used for the resolution of conflicts within an organization that do not necessarily have a legal implication (e.g. conflicts in teams). This course intends to teach students the theoretical foundations of mediation, negotiation and interpersonal communication alongside with the practical skills, which are useful for conducting an interest-based conflict resolution in cooperation with the parties.

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This course examines the comparative legal infrastructure of financing high-risk, high-technology enterprises in the United States and in the European Community.  Special attention will be devoted to the theory and practice of technology finance, including the incentive mechanisms and control structures used at each stage of technology development transactions. We will also consider the underlying economic and financial theory of venture capital, while comparing the various national legal regimes and investment environments. Compensation and taxation considerations will also be explored.

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The course will provide students with an introduction to the law and practice of international capital markets. It will explore key legal concepts and the legal infrastructure (e.g. international securities settlement systems). It will discuss the most practically relevant transaction techniques and instruments ranging from simple bonds and equities to highly structured products (such as CDOs), the relevant law (including conflict of laws rules) and practices (e.g. the issuance of formal legal opinions and the role of rating agencies) as well as the regulatory framework in Europe. 

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In the past 25 years, international arbitration has become a major method of international dispute resolution.  Despite this popularity, many lawyers and businesspeople remain unclear as to exactly what international arbitration is and how it differs from court-based litigation.  Whereas the International Arbitration I course addresses topics regarding the nature of arbitration, arbitration agreements and arbitration institutions, the International Arbitration II course focuses on the creation of arbitration awards, where and how those awards can be challenged, and the recognition and enforcement of arbitration awards.  Prerequisite for the International Arbitration II course is either the Arbitration I course, some background in arbitration, or permission of the instructor.

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All parties involved in international business should be aware that disputes sometimes arise when contracts are not fulfilled, action by one party causes harm to another, etc. Whereas International Litigation I focused on national court systems and their jurisdiction, International Litigation II addresses the actual procedure involved in bringing claims against parties in another jurisdiction. An understanding of this procedure before issues arise can help parties prevent litigation problems from arising (through the drafting of better contracts, for example) and make litigation more manageable should claims be unavoidable. Topics discussed in the International Litigation II course include service of process (how a party gives notice to other parties of a claim), discovery (the obtaining of information from other parties to the litigation and from non-parties), and, if time allows, the enforcement of foreign judgments. The course will be taught from a comparative-law perspective.

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In order to navigate a company in a financial crisis, the captain must know the threatening shallows. The course is for this reason divided into two parts. Firstly, an overview of the German corporate insolvency law will be given covering the following three topics: (i) the main insolvency proceedings, e.g. liquidation, insolvency plan and self-management; (ii) the interaction between the insolvency administrator, the company and its creditors (including enforcement and directors’ liabilities); and (iii) international insolvency law (in particular, the EU-Insolvency Regulations). After studying the law of insolvency, the second part of the course deals with the challenges and opportunities of a successful restructuring implemented in order to stabilize the company and to preserve value outside of insolvency proceedings. This part will focus on a financial restructuring using the typical tools such as standstills, fresh money, debtor warrants and debt equity swaps. Case studies will be conducted for this part. Students are encouraged to actively participate in class by making contributions as regards the insolvency law and restructuring experiences from their own jurisdictions.

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The course will investigate the reasons and origins for securities regulation and will analyze and discuss the current regulatory schemes in Germany, the European Union and the U.S. Among the topics covered are the regulation and the process of the issuance of new securities, disclosure requirements of listed companies, take-over regulation and the rules concerning trading on the security exchanges and concepts of fraud on the market. A further topic will be the supervision of the securities markets as currently organized and the international cooperation between the market supervisors. The course will attempt not only to focus on current rules and regulations, but also will give an economic analysis of such rules.

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The course on trademark law will give an overview of national, European and international trademark law. The course will focus on a number of hot topics such as parallel import, anti-counterfeiting and border control, three-dimensional trademarks and product protection, new forms of trademarks such as sound and video trademarks and related questions. The case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of First Instance will be developed in the context of these topics. The course will also focus on the protection of trademarks on an international level. Obtaining protection across borders and multi-national litigation scenarios will be discussed.

The basic principles of trademark law such as distinctiveness, similarity of goods and marks, well-known and famous trademarks, priority in time and other basic principles of trademark law will be explained. At the end of the course, participants should have a useful overview of the most relevant aspects of trademark law and those topics that are currently most controversial.

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