Chair holder

Prof. Dr. Anne Sanders holds the chair for Civil law, Company law, the law of Family Businesses and Judicial Studies at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. She is co-director of the Institute for Family Businesses at the University of Bielefeld (IFUn) and co-head of the interdisciplinary Bachelor program “Law and Management” at the University of Bielefeld.

Anne Sanders has been a part-time judge at the Higher Regional Court of Hamm, Germany (2019-2021) and is a Professor II of the faculty of law of the University of Bergen, Norway.

She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Stiftung Verantwortungseigentum e.V. and of the supervisory board of the Purpose Evergreen Capital GmbH & Co KGaA, which finances sustainable steward-owned businesses.

In 2016, 2017 and 2018, she received teaching awards of the University of Bonn and Bielefeld. For her habilitation thesis, she has received the award of the German Notary Association (Deutsche Notarrechtliche Vereinigung) 2018. Since 2021, she has served as an official mentor (Vertrauensdozentin) of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

Apart from company law and family law, Anne Sanders works on court administration and judicial independence and has served regularly as expert for judicial independence and the quality of judges’ work for the Council of Europe. As an expert, she has supported the drafting of four CCJE Opinions (2014, 2015, 2019 and 2021). She is co-chair of the permanent EGPA study group for justice and court administration.

Before joining the faculty of law at Bielefeld, she held a position as associate professor at the University of Bonn (2013-2017). She has served as a law clerk/judicial assistant at the German Federal Constitutional Court (2009-2011). She holds a PhD (2007) and Habilitation (2017) of the University of Cologne. She studied law at the Humboldt-University (1997-2001) of Berlin and the University of Oxford (2005/2006). She was supported by scholarships of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.