Advisory Council

Sir William Blair

Sir William Blair is the Professor of Financial Law and Ethics at Queen Mary University of London, based at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies.  He served as a High Court Judge in England and Wales for nearly ten years, and was Judge in Charge of the Commercial Court in London from 2016.  He helped to establish the specialist Financial List, and the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts which met for the first time in May 2017.  He served as Chairman of the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Tribunal.

At the EU level, he is President of the Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities. He is a member of London’s Financial Markets Law Committee, and chairs the Monetary Law Committee of the International Law Association.

Sir William graduated from Oxford University, and practised at the English Bar where he specialised in the law of banking and finance. He became a QC in 1994, and was Chair of the Commercial Bar Association, 2003 and 2005. He holds visiting Professorships at the London School of Economics, Peking University and East China University of Political Science and Law, and is a Fellow of the Oxford University Commercial Law Centre.

He is a member of P.R.I.M.E. Finance’s Advisory Board and its Panel of Experts.  Sir William chairs the Law and Ethics in Finance Project, an informal group concerned with standards in the financial sector.