Pedro Magalhães Batista
- Position: Lecturer in Commercial, Corporate, and Banking Law
- Areas of expertise: Banking law; banking supervision; financial regulation; corporate governance; law and economics; stablecoins; crypto-assets; fintech; AI in regulation; political economy.
- Email: P.MagalhaesBatista@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 2.26 The Liberty Building
- Website: | LinkedIn | Googlescholar
Profile
I joined the University of Leeds School of Law in October 2021 as a Lecturer in Commercial, Corporate, and Banking Law. My research examines the public choice of law and finance, with particular focus on banking regulation and supervision, corporate governance and finance, and the institutional design of decentralised finance. I write about how legal rules, supervisory institutions, and political incentives shape financial markets, corporate decision-making, and regulatory delay.
Prior to joining academia, I worked as a corporate lawyer and consultant and held a series of legal and policy roles across Brazil's federal government. I served as Division Chief of the Department for Rationalisation of State Requirements at the Secretariat of Micro and Small Enterprise of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil. I also held legal positions at the Brazilian antitrust authority, the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica; the Secretariat of Legislative Affairs of the Ministry of Justice; the Civil House of the Presidency of the Republic; the Legal Advisory Office of the Ministry of Justice; the National Bank for Economic and Social Development; and the Federal Attorney General's Office.
Research interests
My current research interests are organised around a set of connected questions about law, finance, and institutional design. I am particularly interested in how financial supervisors detect risk, prioritise problems, escalate concerns, and decide whether to intervene. Recent work examines supervisory delay, enforcement inaction, coordination costs, rating and classification choices, and the administrative incentives that shape prudential supervision before a crisis becomes visible.
These questions connect to broader interests in law and economics, public choice theory, administrative law, and corporate governance. I study how legal rules allocate discretion and accountability among public officials, firms, shareholders, managers, and market participants, and how institutional design affects the credibility of regulatory commitments, the discipline supplied by markets, and the capacity of public agencies to act under uncertainty.
I am also developing work on the legal and economic governance of financial innovation, especially stablecoins, crypto-assets, decentralised finance, and AI-assisted supervision. This research asks how new technologies unsettle inherited regulatory categories and how law can preserve legality, accountability, entrepreneurship, and financial stability without freezing experimentation or entrenching incumbents.
More information and selected papers are available on my SSRN, Google Scholar, and Personal Website.
Qualifications
- PhD candidate in Law (Law & Economics of Money and Finance), Goethe University Frankfurt
- LL.M. in International Law (Investments, Trade, and Arbitration), Heidelberg University
- LL.B., University Center of Brasilia
Student education
I teach across undergraduate and postgraduate areas of corporate, banking, contract, and international financial law. My role includes teaching, assessment, feedback, and module leadership, with an emphasis on helping students develop clear legal analysis, institutional understanding, and the ability to connect doctrine with markets, regulation, and public policy.
Research groups and institutes
- Centre for Business Law and Practice