This year, Baker McKenzie is awarding the Baker McKenzie Prize to Dr. Tobias Bürk and Dr. Kevin Hinzen for their outstanding dissertations in business law. The international law firm has awarded the prize (which is endowed with EUR 6,000) in recognition of outstanding work in commercial law at the Faculty of Law at Goethe University since 1988. The dissertations or post-doctoral theses must have been awarded with "summa cum laude." The award ceremony will take place on May 9, 2025 during the annual graduation ceremony in the Casino building of the Westend campus. Dr. Florian Thamm, partner at Baker McKenzie, will award the prize.
Dr. Tobias Bürk will receive the prize for his dissertation titled "Third-party investors in the law of shareholder loans." The supervisor of his thesis, Prof. Dr. Andreas Cahn, notes that the law of shareholder loans has been one of the most intensively studied corporate law topics for decades. "It is all the more remarkable that Tobias Bürk develops new and independent approaches and uses mathematical models and behavioral economic findings to develop new and advanced insights," he added. The work contains independent methodological groundwork at a very high level, while at the same time, the author consistently applies the knowledge gained to specific legal problems.
Dr. Kevin Hinzen will receive the award for his dissertation titled "Fiscal Resilience in Budgetary Parliamentarism — Crisis Reaction Phenomena in German and European Public Finance Law." The supervisor of the thesis, Prof. Dr. Mathias Goldmann said: "The upheavals in public finances over the last decade and a half regularly highlight the benefits of fiscal rules and at the same time the difficulties associated with them. I see the great strength of Kevin Hinzen's work and its contribution to legal research in the fact that it comprehensively examines the phenomenon of flexibilization in public finance law." The work gives important impulses for the further development of European financial law in particular.
Dr. Florian Thamm, who represented Baker McKenzie on the selection committee of Goethe University's Research Committee expressed that: "It is very important to us to support excellent young lawyers. The Baker McKenzie Prize shall support this goal. Our law firm is continuously looking for new forms of support, such as the equal opportunities scholarship, with which we support law students who find it difficult to study law for cultural, financial or family reasons. The third year of this scholarship is running since February 2025."