Deirdre Ahern

Professor Deirdre Ahern specialises in commercial law, particularly comparative corporate law and corporate governance theory as well as FinTech regulation.  She is an international expert on statutory codification of company law and on company directors’ duties.  Professor Ahern’s research engages with the societal and legal expectations of companies and their directors including the ethical challenges presented by globalisation.  She has investigated how companies engage with the issue of board diversity including gender.  Seeking answers to the challenges of ensuring responsible capitalism, she has addressed development of reporting practices for gauging companies’ commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Professor Ahern’s monograph, Directors’ Duties: Law and Practice (Thomson Round Hall, 2009) filled a substantial gap in scholarship and legal understanding as the implications of the financial crisis emerged.  Its robust analysis of directors’ legal duties included an excavation of the previously neglected complex remedial framework for breaches of these duties.

Professor Ahern has made a strong impact upon her discipline as Director of the Irish Corporate Law Forum and through serving as co-editor of the Irish Business Law Review.  She also sits on the editorial board of The Company Lawyer and the Journal of Business Law, is a senior board member of the International Comparative Corporate Law Association and a member of the European Corporate Governance Institute.