Biography

Nikolai Badenhoop is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE in Frankfurt. He held a Max Weber Fellowship at the European University Institute’s Law Department from 2021 to 2022. He is a legal scholar whose research covers European Union law, financial regulation, competition, contract and tort law, corporate governance, consumer protection, professional secrecy and Brexit. Nikolai currently focuses on sustainable finance.

As a European Lawyer, he holds law degrees from Humboldt University Berlin (German state examination), Sapienza University of Rome (Laurea Magistrale in Giurisprudenza) and King’s College London (LL.M.). Nikolai obtained his Ph.D. from Humboldt University Berlin and published a book exploring EU banking regulation and its impact on national private law. He speaks English, German, French, Italian and Spanish fluently.

Nikolai gained practical experience working several years for international law firms in London and Berlin, the German Federal Ministry of Finance and a leading European start-up bank.  He is a fully qualified lawyer (Volljurist) and holds the necessary qualification to become a judge in Germany. Nikolai’s teaching experience includes courses at bachelor, master and PhD levels at Sapienza University of Rome and the EUI’s Department of Law. He teaches at the Florence School of Banking and Finance on ‘Green bonds and the sustainable bond market‘.

Currently, Nikolai focuses on sustainable finance in the EU legal framework. His research reaches from the definition of environmental, social and governance sustainability goals to their implementation within financial markets, banking regulation and corporate law. Starting from the European Green Deal, he analyses how existing regulatory tools impact sustainability goals and how the tools can be enhanced to increase sustainability. As a legal expert, Nikolai delivered an independent and objective study on the proposed EU Green Bond Standard at the request of the European Parliament’s ECON committee to support its legislative work. During trilogues, he presented his study at the European Parliament.

Nikolai’s research has attracted news coverage, including interviews and reports on the green bond study by Bloomberg and the FT Group. His recent paper on greening supply chains and their financing under EU law was quoted by the Financial Times.