Roel Theissen works within NautaDutilh's Financial Law team and has almost 30 years of experience in financial supervision of banks and insurers, with a specialisation in prudential supervision. The implications of financial supervision for these institutions, their directors and other stakeholders in their relationships with regulators, together with the repercussions of that supervision in acquisitions, transactions and financial and governance problems, are at the heart of his practice.

He holds a PhD in European banking supervision, and has advised and lectured on the solidity (capital, governance, integrity) of all categories of supervised financial companies.

In this area, Roel has published academically, including a handbook on European banking supervision and how it fits into the system of prudential and conduct of business supervision of the financial sector ('EU Banking Supervision'), in addition to his doctoral thesis on whether this supervision achieves its goals ('Are EU Banks Safe?').  He regularly publishes on issues related to market entry and ongoing supervision.

Cases in which Roel is involved

• Market entry of banks, insurers, payment institutions (licences, declarations of no objection).
• Advising financial institutions or their clients on the interpretation and practical application of European and/or Dutch supervisory regulations, such as the CRD/CRR, Solvency II, IFR/IFD, Wft and rules of the ECB, DNB, EIOPA and EBA, and communicating about these topics with supervisors and other stakeholders.

What others say
In 2023, Legal500 ranked Roel the Rising Star and Key Lawyer in the field of Insurance. In both Financial Service Regulatory as Banking & Finance – lender or arranger side, Roel is ranked as a Key Lawyer and he is considered to be ‘extremely knowledgeable in matters concerning company governance and matters with regard to Dutch banks’.

More about Roel
In addition to his work for NautaDutilh, Roel lectures on these topics and is editor-in-chief of the SDU Financial Law Hub. He is also a volunteer educator with COC Amsterdam and its environs, visiting amongst others secondary schools to discuss LGBTQI+ topics and provide information.

After studying in Nijmegen and fulfilling his military service in Seedorf in 1991/1992, Roel worked at major Dutch law firms, Erasmus University and at DNB. At DNB, he worked on supervisory policy development, including secondments to the Ministry of Finance and to the legal predecessor of the European Banking Authority (CEBS). Both at CEBS and DNB, he was active on topics such as cross-sector consistency, pillar 2 assessments, governance and cross-border cooperation, and public authority tools at the time of financial crisis at financial institutions or in society. In that context, he was co-secretary of the Council of Financial Supervisors, and of the groupe de contact, among others.