Introduction

Virág Blazsek is an Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice (CBLP) at the University of Leeds School of Law. She teaches corporate, commercial, and banking law subjects. She writes on banking law, financial regulation, and the digital transformation of financial services. She is a listed arbitrator at the OHADA Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA), and a short-term legal expert at the International Monetary Fund.

Virág has been the Co-Convenor of the Banking and Financial Services Law Section of the Society of Legal Scholars and External Examiner at King’s College London.

Before transitioning to academia, Virág practised banking and business law as Senior In-House Counsel (Team Manager) and member of the board of directors of a wholly owned subsidiary at OTP Bank, Budapest, as well as legal positions with Winston & Strawn LLP, Paris, and the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, New York.

She defended her doctoral dissertation summa cum laude in 2018. She is the author of Banking Bailout Law: A Comparative Study of the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union (Routledge, UK & US, October 2020); her work is held by over 750 libraries worldwide (WorldCat; as of July 2025).

Recently, Virág has held visiting positions at Emory (2024 and 2026) and the European University Institute (2025). Before joining the Faculty at Leeds, Virág held research and teaching positions at Central European University (2014–2018), Fordham University School of Law (2016), Columbia Law School (2017), Budapest Business School (2018), and the George Washington University Law School (2018–2019), where she was also a Thomas Buergenthal scholar and recipient of the Pro Bono Service Award for completing a project at the DC Superior Court’s Landlord-Tenant Legal Resource Center.

Virág regularly serves as an ad hoc reviewer for law and economics journals and publishers. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Risk Regulation, Law, and Policy (Brill). She has successfully completed collaborative international research projects in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Spain, Italy, and Hungary. She has been a Michael Beverly Innovation Fellow twice (2022-2024) and is researching secondary FinTech centers and leading the development of the “Leeds Financial and FinTech Hub” (Project video available):

She is fluent in English, Spanish, German, and Hungarian.

QUALIFICATION

• • Juris Doctor and PhD in Law (recognition of S.J.D.), Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law
  • LLM and SJD in International Business Law, Central European University
  • LLM in Business and Finance Law, George Washington University Law School
  • LLM in US and Global Business Law, Suffolk University School of Law