Rosa M. Lastra

Dr Rosa María Lastra is Professor in International Financial and Monetary Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), Queen Mary University of London. She is a member of Monetary Committee of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA), a founding member of the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC), an associate of the Financial Markets Group of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an affiliated scholar of the Centre for the Study of Central Banks at New York University School of Law. From 2008 to 2010 she was a Visiting Professor of the University of Stockholm. She has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From November 2008 to June 2009 she acted as Specialist Adviser to the European Union Committee [Sub-Committee A] of the House of Lords regarding its Inquiry into EU Financial Regulation and responses to the financial crisis. In 2015 she became a member of the Monetary Expert Panel of the European Parliament. Since 2016 she is a member of the Banking Union (Resolution) Expert Panel of the European Parliament.
Prior to coming to London, she was Assistant Professor of International Banking at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in New York (1993-1996). From January 1992 to September 1993 she was a consultant in the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C. She studied at Valladolid University, Madrid University, London School of Economics and Political Science and Harvard Law School (Fulbright Fellow). Her publications include numerous articles in internationally refereed journals and several books: International Financial and Monetary Law (Oxford University Press, 2015, authored), Sovereign Debt Management (OUP, 2014, co-edited), The Rule of Law in Monetary Affairs (Cambridge University Press, 2014, co-edited), International Law in Financial Regulation and Monetary Affairs, (OUP, 2012, co-edited), Cross-Border Bank Insolvency (OUP, 2011, edited), Legal Foundation of International Monetary Stability (OUP, 2006, authored), The Reform of the International Financial Architecture (Kluwer, 2001, edited), Bank Failures and Bank Insolvency Law in Economies in Transition (Kluwer, 1999, co-edited), Central Banking and Banking Regulation (LSE, 1996, authored).

Systemic Solutions to Systemic Crises. Dealing with NPLs in the Eurozone

July 5, 2017 by Rym Ayadi, Giovanni Ferri and Rosa M. Lastra

We focus on the restructuring of troubled banks in the Eurozone. First, we review how legacy assets (mostly NPLs) were dealt in various countries (especially Japan, USA, Sweden and Spain), supporting a centralized solution in case of generalized banking crises. Second, drawing on the credit channel literature, we stress the need to differentiate between systemic and non-systemic events. Third, we theoretically advocate a systematic centralised Eurozone level approach to maintain fair recovery rates of restructuring banks’ NPLs. Our paper contributes to the lively debate on how to reinvigorate the EU banking system and thus avoid the related negative macroeconomic consequences.
This material was originally published in a paper provided at the request of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament and commissioned by the Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union and supervised by its Economic Governance Support Unit (EGOV). The opinions expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the European Parliament. The original paper is available on the European Parliament’s webpage. © European Union, 2017