Ioana Maria Costea, PhD

Moderator of the main panel, Ioana Maria Costea is an Associate Professor and the Dean of the Faculty of Law of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania. She holds a PhD from the same academic institution and teaches Financial Law to second year undergraduates students, as well as Financial and Tax Litigation and European Fiscality to master’s students. Along with her teaching career, Ioana also authored numerous studies, ranging from monographs and chapters in books to articles published in internationally recognized journals and papers published in conference proceedings. Furthermore, she is a lawyer in Iasi Bar Association.

Keynote Speakers

(in alphabetical order)

Lenuţa Alboaie, PhD

Lenuţa Alboaie is a Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania, teaching Cloud Computing, Concurrent and Distributed Computing and Computer Networks. She makes scientific contributions to research domains such as distributed systems (cloud computing), trust and reputation in social networks and semantic Web. Her research results were published in more than 50 publications (books or journals and volumes of national/international conferences). Moreover, she is a member of many international and national program committees of well-known organizations or scientific events. Her organizational skills and capabilities were enhanced by her experience as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science. Over the last ten years she has built a direct and stable connection between the academic and the business environment. She also coordinates or is involved in events such as: IT Summer Internships Program (http://profs.info.uaic.ro/~stagiidepractica), ITC2FII (http://profs.info.uaic.ro/~itc2fii) or BringITOn (http://bringiton.info.uaic.ro). She is the Director of the PrivateSky project (European Regional Development Fund, 2017-2021), which focuses on experimental development in public-private partnership for local cloud platforms with advanced data protection features.

Lucian Bercea, PhD

Lucian Bercea is the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the West University of Timisoara (Romania), since 2012. He is a professor of Commercial Law and Banking Law (since 1997) and a PhD supervisor at this faculty. Professor Bercea is a member of Romanian Bar Association (since 1997) and the managing partner of Bercea&Asociatii, a law firm with knowledge and professional experience in business law. He is a member of the Board of Editors of the Romanian Journal of Business Law (edited by Wolters Kluwer Romania), of Romanian Journal of Private Law (edited by Universul Juridic), and of Central Bank Journal of Law and Finance (edited by the National Bank of Romania). He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Society for Banking and Financial Law (AEDBF). He wrote 5 books and over 50 papers and edited 10 collective books on banking law, consumer law, company law, and insolvency law topics. He participated as key-note speaker in more than 50 international and national conferences. He acted as an expert in over 15 international and national projects on bankruptcy law, company law, financial and banking law, and business criminal law.

Şerban Diaconescu, PhD

Şerban Diaconescu is an Associate Professor of Law and the Dean of the Faculty of Law of Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He holds a PhD in Law from the same academic institution and has completed professional development programs at the Faculty of Law of Paris II University, Panthéon-Assas, as well as in the Leonardo da Vinci Programme in Florence, Italy. Within the National Institute for Training and Professional Development of Lawyers – Cluj Territorial Center, Şerban is a trainer, coordinator of the Civil Law Department and member of the scientific board. He is also a lawyer, a counselor in the Cluj Bar Association and an arbitrator listed with the Court of Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Cluj.

Luminița Dima, PhD

Luminița DIMA is a Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest, Director of the Private Law Department and doctoral supervisor in Labour and Social Security Law of the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest. Luminița graduated the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest and has been teaching for over twenty years Labour Law, Social Security Law, Labour and Industrial Relations in the European Union at the same Faculty. She has coordinated and participated as a member in research groups in a large number of research projects in the area of Labour Law and European Labour Law, especially for the European Commission. She is the author of a vast number of studies, university courses, monographs, scientific articles published in nationally and internationally recognized law journals. Luminița is one of the most renowned attorneys in Romania specialized in Labour Law, member of the Bucharest Bar Association, having more than twenty years of experience in this field, both in terms of legal counselling on human resources and labour law matters, as well as labour law litigation. For more than ten years she has created and coordinated the labour law department of one of the most renowned law firms in Romania and is currently coordinating her own law office, specialized in the same field, of labour relations. Luminița is, currently, a trainer at the National Institute of Magistracy, in the continuous training department.

Raluca Dimitriu, PhD

Raluca Dimitriu is performing teaching and researching activities in higher and postgraduate education and she is currently PhD Coordinator in the field of labour law and industrial relations. She published over 100 studies and books in Romania, Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Great Britain. She participates in the "Restatement of Labor Law" project, published annually by Hart Publishing (Oxford).

As a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Labor Law Network, Raluca has prepared numerous national reports on specific areas of labour law, at the request of the European Commission. She is also a member of the Central Eastern European Labor Experts Network and, as an ILO expert, has provided advice on labor legislation development for several countries in the region. She is a Eurofound expert, being frequently involved in drafting of comparative law studies in the field of industrial relations. Raluca is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the Legal Research Institute of Romanian Academy, member of the Board of the Society of Labor Law and Social Security and keynote speaker at numerous national and international conferences. Raluca is an ERA (Academy of European Law, Trier) speaker, constantly participating in gender equality events. As a trainer for Magistrates specialized in Labour Law - National Institute for Magistracy, Bucharest, Raluca is also in a permanent contact with the practical field of industrial relations.

Mateja Durovic, PhD

Mateja Durovic is a Reader in Contract and Commercial Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Technology, Ethics, Law and Society at King’s College London. Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor (2015‐2017) at the School of Law, City University of Hong Kong. Mateja holds a PhD and an LLM degree from the European University Institute, Italy, an LLM degree from the University of Cambridge, UK, and an LLB degree from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. He was a Post‐Doc Research Associate at the EUI, Italy (2014-2015), Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School, USA (2011), and at the Max Planck Institute of Private International and Comparative Law, Hamburg, Germany (2010). Mateja worked for the Legal Service of the European Commission, as well as a consultant for the European Commission, BEUC and the United Nations. His work was published in leading law journals (European Review of Private Law, European Review of Contract Law, Journal of Consumer Policy) and by most prominent publishers (Oxford University Press, Hart Publishing). He is a member of the European Law Institute, Society of Legal Scholars and Society for European Contract Law.

Eleni Kaprou, PhD

Eleni Kaprou is a Lecturer in Commercial Law at the Law School of Brunel University London, UK. She has been holding the position since 2018, after finishing her PhD at Nottingham University where she was awarded the 2018 DJ Harris award for the best thesis in law. Eleni’s interests lay in European private law and in particular European consumer law.

Gabriel Olteanu, PhD

Gabriel Olteanu is a Professor and the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Craiova. He is a doctoral supervisor in Intellectual Property Law, with a teaching experience of over 18 years in this field of law. His theoretical experience is reinforced by the practical one, as he is a mediator at the Mediation Centre of the World Intellectual Property Organization and at the Romanian Office for Copyright, as well as a lawyer, member of the Dolj Bar Association. Gabriel is the author of university courses, monographs and scientific articles in the field of Intellectual Property Law, especially on the topic of copyright.

Ruxandra Răducanu, PhD

Ruxandra Răducanu is a Professor and Head of the Public Law and Administrative Sciences Department of the Faculty of Law of the University of Craiova. Having over 20 years of experience in teaching, she has completed all stages of the academic career, as she is currently a doctoral supervisor in Criminal Law. Ruxandra is an author and co-author of nationally and internationally published studies, as well as courses, monographs and annotated legislation in the field of Criminal Law. She also attends and gives lectures at national and international conferences, congresses and symposiums regarding Criminal Law. She participated in numerous research projects as a member or coordinator, regarding Criminal Law issues, but not limited solely to this field of law. She is a lawyer, member of the Dolj Bar Association since 1999.

Felicia Roșioru, PhD

Felicia Roșioru is Associate Professor of Labour Law and EU Employment Law at the Faculty of Law, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She has been a Visiting Professor at Institut d’études du travail de Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2.  Felicia specializes in Romanian, European and comparative labour law. Member of the COGENS, INLACRIS and NUTRA projects, her research focuses on the concept of subordination, the status of intermediate categories, such as the economically dependent workers and the status and the collective rights of platform workers.

Sebastian Spinei, PhD

Sebastian Spinei is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu. He is a lawyer in the Sibiu Bar Association, having more than twenty years of experience. Sebastian is a member of the International Association of Procedural Law and member of scientific committees and of the editorial boards of the Romanian Private Law Review, the Romanian Forced Execution Law Review, the Judicial Sciences Review, the Romanian Business Law Review and the Acta Universitatis Law Review of the Lucian Blaga University. He is the author or co-author of over 40 studies and articles published in Romania – in the Acta Universitatis Law Review of the Lucian Blaga University, the Law Review, the Romanian Private Law Review, the Romanian Forced Execution Review, the Romanian Pandects, the Judicial Courier, the Studia Universitatis of the Babeș-Bolyai University – and abroad. He has also authored or co-authored a number of books. He has participated and given lectures at national and international conferences and congresses, in Sibiu, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Timișoara, Dubrovnik, Rotterdam, Maastricht, Budapest, Heidelberg, Malaga, Gent, London, Potsdam. He collaborated with associations and institutes, such as the Henri Capitant Association of the French Legal Culture, the Maastricht European Private Law Institute, the International Journal of Procedural Law, the Institute for Eastern Law München, the Sibiu Bar Association, the National Institute for Training and Professional Development of Lawyers, the National Centre for Training and Professional Development of Enforcement Officers, the National Union of the Insolvency Practitioners. He also had research internships in Budapest and Maastricht.

Charles Szymanski, JD

Charles Szymanski is a professor of law at the Faculty of Law of Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. He also serves as a visiting professor at the University of Trento and as an adjunct professor at Michigan State University, College of Law, and has lectured at over 20 universities in Europe, Asia and North America. Charles specializes in comparative labor law and alternative dispute resolution (ADR). A licensed attorney in the United States (Michigan), he previously held the position of chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section. Charles is currently an arbitrator listed with the Vilnius Arbitration Association in Lithuania. He is the author of numerous publications in the field of labor law and ADR, and a frequent speaker on these subjects at conferences.

Carmen Tamara Ungureanu, PhD

Carmen Tamara Ungureanu is a Professor of International Commercial Law and European Private International Law at the Faculty of Law of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, Romania. She is a doctoral supervisor in International Commercial Law and the Director of the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Law. Carmen holds a PhD in Private International Law from “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. She joined the teaching staff of the Faculty of Law in 1994 and has completed all stages of her academic career at the same university. Carmen’s work was published at prestigious national publishing houses and in nationally recognized law journals. She is an expert in Romania’s Commission, Working Group III UNCITRAL since 2017 and a member of the UNIDROIT Governing Council, Rome, Italy since 2019. Carmen is also a member of the European Association of Private International Law (EAPIL).