Women Leaders in Law Fellow Helen Dervan
Helen Dervan is one of the inaugural Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellows. She will be examining prudential regulation and proposed reforms to the Reserve Banks’s legislative and institutional framework as part of completing a PhD thesis on prudential regulation in Aotearoa New Zealand through Melbourne University.
Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellowship
Helen’s plan
Helen is examining prudential regulation and proposed reforms to the Reserve Banks’s legislative and institutional framework as part of completing a PhD thesis on prudential regulation in Aotearoa New Zealand through Melbourne University. Her research will analyse Aotearoa New Zealand’s prudential regulatory regime under the Twin Peaks model of financial regulation and the current proposed reforms. She will compare Aotearoa New Zealand’s regime to those in comparable jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and Australia, which afford more protection to retail depositors. Her work will include analysing structural, legal features to optimise the prudential regulatory side of the Twin Peaks model in small economies like New Zealand.
About Helen
Helen Dervan is an academic at Auckland University of Technology Law School and researches in banking and financial services, and commercial equity. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Melbourne and her thesis will examine New Zealand’s prudential regulatory regime. Her co-authored article on the need for deposit insurance in Aotearoa New Zealand received the Rex Mason Trust Prize 2018 for excellence in legal writing and her co-authored essay criticising the proposed governance structure for Aotearoa New Zealand’s prudential regulator received the (Australasian) Banking and Financial Services Law Association Research Essay Prize 2020. Before becoming an academic, Helen was in legal practice and worked in international banking and finance litigation at an international law firm in London and at a large Auckland firm. She holds a postgraduate BCL degree from the University of Oxford.
Grant Amount
$38,350 in 2021-2022
“The enduring legacy of the 2008 GFC shows that ordinary people and the poor suffer most from financial crises. In reforming economic institutions like the Reserve Bank, we must consider economic justice and the extent of the prudential regulator’s powers. My research will examine how best to do this for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. This grant will help me undertake more extensive research, both nationally and internationally, which I hope will lead to better protection for those who need it. I am immensely grateful to the Borrin Foundation for their support.”
– Helen Dervan