Staff profile

Roman Tomasic is the Chair in Company Law at the Durham Law School. He has a particular interest in corporate governance, comparative corporate law and insolvency law reform issues. He holds an MA and LLB from the University of Sydney, and doctorates from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (SJD) and  the University of New South Wales (PhD). Prior to moving to Durham, Professor Tomasic was a Research Professor in the School of Law at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He has held a visiting lecturer position at the Wisconsin-Madison Law School and Visiting Professor of Law positions at law schools at the City University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong and the International Islamic University Malaysia;  Prof Tomasic has held continuing law teaching positions at Kuring-Gai College (now the University of Technology, Sydney), the University of Canberra, and Victoria University in Melbourne. He is currently also an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Canberra and has been an Adjunct Professor at the China University of Politics and Law in Beijing.

He has led efforts to establish law schools at Canberra and Victoria Universities and also served as Head of the Department of Law and Chair of the Academic Board at the University of Canberra and as the Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at Victoria University. He was for some years the Director of the National Centre for Corporate Law and Policy Research in Canberra and served as the initial Director of the Centre for International Corporate Governance Research at Victoria University. He was founding Editor of the Australian Journal of Corporate Law from 1991 until 2007.  He has been a law reform consultant to the OECD and the German agency GTZ and worked on commercial law reforms being developed by the Finance and Economic Committee of the Nartional People's Congress in China. 

Professor Tomasic is especially interested in comparative and international aspects of corporate law, corporate governance, insolvency law and business regulation.  He has undertaken empiricially-based research in these areas and has undertaken field work in a number of countries, with a special interest in the Chinese and East Asian legal systems. He has recently worked on a project on stakeholder governance issues in Britain, China and Germany (funded by the British Academy and involving the Law Institute of CASS).  In recent years he has also  undertaken substantial research into legal aspects of the global banking and financial crisis and is leading a major Leverhulme funded project looking at tipping points in the financial crisis.  He welcomes PhD students with research interests in these areas.  

Video Podcasts

Financial Crises: The Need to Learn from History (Video)

Principles based approach to financial regulation (Video)

• Institute of Commercial and Corporate Law

• Grants

• 2010: Tipping Points: mathematics, metaphors and meaning(£132866.78 from The Leverhulme Trust)
• 2009: Stakeholders and gatekeepers as agents of more effective corpoprate governance(£36227.03 from CO-REACH)

Authored book

• Jia, Xinting. & Tomasic, Roman. (2010). Corporate Governance and Resource Security in China – The Transformation of China’s Global Resources Companies. New York: Routledge.
• Tomasic, Roman., Jackson, Jim. & Woellner, Robin. (2003). Corporations law – Principles, Policy and Process, 4th edition. Butterworths LexisNexis.
• Tomasic, Roman., Bottomley, Stephen. & McQueen, Rob. (2002). Corporations Law in Australia, Second Edition. Federation Press.
• Tomasic, Roman. & Little, Peter. (1997). Insolvency Law and Practice in Asia. FT Law & Tax, Hong Kong.
• Tomasic, Roman. & Bottomley, Stephen. (1993). Directing the Top 500 – Corporate Governance and Accountability in Australian Companies. Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd.
• Tomasic, Roman. (1985). The Sociology of Law. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Book review

• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). 'A social history of company law Great Britain and the Australian colonies 1854-1920' by Rob McQueen, Farnham Ashgate, 2009. Social & Legal Studies 20(1): 132-136.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2007). “And they all lived happily ever after ? – Improving corporate law after Enron: A review essay”. Australian Journal of Corporate Law 20(2): 232-241.

Chapter in book

• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). The Failure of Corporate Governance and the Limits of Law: British banks and the global financial crisis. In Corporate Governance and the Global Financial Crisis - International Perspectives. Sun, William, Stewart, Jim & Pollard, David Cambridge Cambridge University Press. 50-74.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). Looking at Corporate Governance in China's Large Companies: Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty ? In The Development of the Chinese Legal System - Change and Challenges. Yu, Guanghua. London: Routledge. 182-205.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2010). Beyond ‘Light Touch’ Regulation of British Banks after the Financial Crisis. In The Future of Financial Regulation. MacNeil, I. & O'Brien, J. Oxford: Hart Publishing. 103-122.
• Tomasic, Roman (2010). The Conceptual Structure of China’s New Corporate Bankruptcy Law. In China's New Enterprise Bankruptcy Law: Context, Interpretation, and Application. Parry,Rebecca. Xu,Yongqian. & Zhang, Haizheng. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing. 21-41.

Edited book

• Tomasic, Roman. (2006). Insolvency Law in East Asia. Ashgate Publisahing Limited, Aldershot, UK.
• Tomasic, Roman. (1999). Company Law in East Asia. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 1999.

Journal Article

• Tomasic, Roman (2012). Corporate Governance and the Protection of Stakeholder Interests in British Banks. European Company Law 9(1): 26-36.
• Tomasic, Roman. & Akinbami, Folarin. (2011). The Role of Trust in Maintaining the Resilience of Financial Markets. Journal of Corporate Law Studies 11(2): 369-394.
• Tomasic, Roman & Akinbami, Folarin (2011). Towards a New Corporate Governance After the Global Financial Crisis. International Company and Commercial Law Review 22(8): 237-249.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). The Emerging EU Framework for Bank Recovery and Resolution. Corporate Rescue & Insolvency 4(2): 40-42.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). The financial crisis and the haphazard pursuit of financial crime. Journal of Financial Crime 18(1): 7-31.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). Company Law Modernisation and Corporate Governance in the UK - Some Recent Issues and Debates. DICTUM - Victoria Law School Journal 1(1): 43-61.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2010). Establishing a UK rescue regime for failed investment banks. Corporate Rescue and Insolvency 3(2): 60-64.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2009). Creating a template for banking insolvency law reform after the collapse of Northern Rock: Part 1. Insolvency Intelligence 22(5): 65-70.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2009). “Raising corporate governance standards in response to corporate rescue and insolvency”. Corporate Rescue and Insolvency journal 2(1): 5-9.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2009). Creating a template for banking insolvency law reform after the collapse of Northern Rock: Part 2. Insolvency Intelligence 22(6): 81-88.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2008). Corporate rescue, governance and risk-taking in Northern Rock (Part 2). Company Lawyer 29(11): 330-337.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2008). “The Rescue of Northern Rock: nationalisation in the shadow of insolvency". Corporate Rescue and Insolvency 1(4): 109-111.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2008). Corporate rescue, governance and risk-taking in Northern Rock (Part 1). Company Lawyer 29(10): 297-303.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2007). “Insolvency law reform in Asia and emerging global insolvency norms”. Insolvency Law Journal 15: 229-242.
• Tomasic, Roman. & Neil, Andrews. (2007). “Minority Shareholder Protection in China’s Top 100 Listed Companies”. Australian Journal of Asian Law 9(1): 88-119.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2006). “The Challenge of Corporate Law Enforcement: Future Directions for Corporations Law in Australia”. University of Western Sydney Law Review 10: 1-23.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2006). “The Modernisation of Corporations Law: Corporate law reform in Australia and beyond”. Australian Journal of Corporate Law 19(1): 2-34.
• Tomasic, Roman. & Jian FU (2006). “Legal Regulation and Corporate Governance in China’s top 100 Listed Companies”. The Company Lawyer 27(9): 278-287.
• Andrews, Neil. & Tomasic, Roman. (2006). “Directing China’s Top 100 Listed Companies: Corporate Governance in an Emerging Market Economy”. The Corporate Governance Law Review 2(3): 245-309.
• Tomasic, Roman (2005). “Making Corporate Governance Work in China’s Top 100 Listed Companies: Some Threats to Effective Governance”. Corporate Governance – International journal for enhancing board performance 5(4): 8-12.
• Tomasic, Roman. (2003). “The Theoretical Foundations of Australian Corporations Law Reform: Some Lessons for Reformers”. Journal of International Commercial Law 1(3): 323-349.

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Tomasic, Roman. (2011). "Corporate Governance Reforms in the EU". European Company Law 8(4): 142-144.