Prof. Francisco Reyes

Francisco Reyes &
Asociados, Bogotá
Nationality: Colombian
Course: Doing Business in Latin America

Francisco Reyes Villamizar has been a research fellow at Max Planck Institute. A former Superintendent of Companies from Colombia he was also the Chairman of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He co-drafted the 2022 Commercial Code of Mozambique. He has been an active participant and draftsman of several comprehensive legislative reforms to the Colombian laws of Corporations and Bankruptcy, including the successful law on Simplified Stock Corporations enacted in 2008. He prepared the OAS Model Law on Simplified Corporations. He also presided over the governmental commissions for the amendment of the Colombian Bankruptcy Law and the Law on Secured Transactions.

LLB from Javeriana University in Bogotá, LLM from the University of Miami School of Law and PhD in Law from the University of Tilburg. He also holds a diploma in Portuguese Culture from the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Dr. Reyes Villamizar has been a Visiting Professor in four continents, including Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, LA), Stetson College of Law (Gulfport, FL), University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), University of Miami (FL), Université de Lyon Jean Moulin (France), University of Fribourg (Switzerland), University of Tilburg (The Netherlands), Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Universidade Agostinho Neto (Angola), Doshisha of Kyoto (Japan) and Universidad Austral (Argentina).

Speaker at several international fora, including those at the Supreme Courts of Brazil and Mexico, as well as Columbia, Harvard and Fordham Universities. Author of several books and articles in the fields of Business Associations and Bankruptcy. His extensive scholarly production includes publications in Spanish, English and Portuguese. Author of the books Latin American Company Law (Carolina Academic Press, 2013), Direito Societario Americano (Quatier Latin, 2012), Análisis Económico del Derecho Societario (Astrea, 2018), and a two-volume treatise on Colombian Company Law (Temis, 2006). He served as director and Chairman of the Board at the Latin American publishing company Legis S.A. He has been an expert witness before courts in New York, Florida, Arizona and California.