Francisco Reyes Villamizar

Francisco Reyes Villamizar is a Professor of Corporate Law and a consultant for the World Bank. He has served as Superintendent of Companies of Colombia and as Chair of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He has been involved in drafting several legislative reforms in Colombian Commercial Law, including the successful 2008 Simplified Joint Stock Companies Act. He also authored the OAS Model Law on Simplified Joint Stock Companies. In addition, he co-drafted Mozambique’s 2022 Commercial Code. He has chaired government commissions for the reform of Colombia’s Secured Transactions Law and Statutory Auditing Law. He holds a law degree from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, a Master of Comparative Law from the University of Miami, and a PhD in Law from Tilburg University. He also earned a diploma in Portuguese Culture from the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Dr. Reyes has been a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg and has served as a visiting professor on four continents, including at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge), Stetson College of Law (Gulfport), University of Arizona (Tucson), University of Miami, Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 (France), University of Fribourg (Switzerland), Tilburg University (Netherlands), Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, and Agostinho Neto University (Angola).