Our Instructors

Achilleas is a partner at Lellos P Demetriades Law Office. He specialises, among other sectors, in Human Rights Law as well as in Intellectual Property Rights matters and his anti-piracy approach is not usually confined to a particular cause of action, but combines creatively available laws so as to achieve speedy and effective results. He was called to the English Bar and holds a Master’s in International Trade from Georgetown Law Centre in Washington, DC. He is a member of the E.U. Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights set up by the European Commission, a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Cyprus Bar Association, the Chairman of the Press Ethics Committee of the Association of Newspapers and Periodicals Publishers, a member of the FIPRA Group (Finsbury International Policy & Regulatory Advisers), a member of the Cyprus American Business Association and represents the Business Software Alliance in Cyprus.

Alan Bridger was born in the UK in 1965. He graduated in Economics (Bsc Econ.) from the University of Wales. In 1987 he joined Chemical Ban in London (now part of JP Morgan) working as an Interest Rate Swap accountant. He left the company in 1991 to become a Fixed Income Trader in the Financial Markets Division of Cargill PLC, the largest privately-owned company in the USA. In 1996 he moved to GNI Ltd (now part of Man Group), working as a broker at the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE). Since coming to Cyprus in 2001, he established a successful privately-owned hedge fund, using leveraged products to trade UK and US stock indices.

Chris was the founding partner of Iacovides Kimonos & Co, the island’s first insolvency firm, set up in 1988, to provide insolvency related services. He has gained considerable experience, practicing in Cyprus during the last twenty years and following his departure from the firm he set up, in November of 2008, he teamed up with other leading professionals, to set up CRI Group. With the introduction of the Insolvency Act 1986 in the United Kingdom, Chris, at the age of 24, became the youngest licensed Insolvency Practitioner in the UK. With over 7,000 insolvency related appointments to his credit in the last 26 years, Chris boasts a wealth of experience in all aspects of insolvency related work. Utilizing the mechanisms introduced by the rescue culture embodied in the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Enterprise Act 2002 in the UK, Chris has been able to facilitate loan and debt restructuring and corporate turnarounds for many companies home and abroad. Chris specializes in cross border insolvency and corporate restructuring and enjoys an excellent reputation amongst professionals worldwide. He has been involved in several complicated cross border insolvencies, spanning several jurisdictions including, but not limited to: United States, Canada, British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Bahamas, India and Nepal, Netherlands, Spain and Jersey. Chris has participated as a guest speaker in many seminars on cross border insolvency and is the author of a number of articles in this field. He currently practices in England but he has recently been licensed by the National Union of Insolvency Practitioners of Romania and together with his partners at CRI group, intent expanding their operations to Romania. Chris is a member of all the leading professional Insolvency and Turnaround Associations, his memberships include the Insolvency Practitioners Association, the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, the Turnaround Management Association, the Canadian Bar Association, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Association of Restructuring Advisors in the U.S. and the National Union of Insolvency Practitioners of Romania.

Christiana N. Markou was born in 1977 in Nicosia, Cyprus. She holds an LL.B (Hons.) from the University of Sheffield (UK) and an LL.M in International, Commercial and European Law from the same university. She was called to the Cyprus Bar Association in 2001 after passing the relevant examination with honours in 2000. She is now close to obtaining a PhD degree in Computer/E-Commerce Law from the University of Lancaster. She has been practising law since 2001 as an associate in a major Cypriot law firm until the end 2005 when she decided to establish C.M.C. Jurisprudentes. She mainly deals with Civil & Commercial Litigation, Corporate business law, Personal Injury, Intellectual Property, Employment law, European law, Consumer Protection and IT/E-Commerce law, though she has experience in other areas of law. She is the Cypriot Correspondent of the EU Consumer Law Compendium. She took the initiative for and co-managed the establishment of the Computer Law Special Interest Group of the Cyprus Computer Society, which aims at educating lawyers, judges and other interested parties on the newly-emerged area of IT/computer law in which she is one of the first Cypriot experts. She is the founder and administrator of the non-profit legal websites and online legal projects, BotLaw.com and LawInCyprus.com, the latter currently being under construction. She is also the founder of the ECLR Centre of Legal Research, a research department of the office which offers legal research services to lawyers, accountants and other interested parties. She has also speaken at various legal-oriented conferences.

Christopher is the founding partner of Christophoros Christophi & Associates Law Office. His practice areas include Company Law, Employment Law, Industrial Relations, Commercial Law, European Community Law and Intellectual Property Law. He was admitted as a lawyer to the Cyprus Lawyers Association in 1997. He studied law at the University of Leicester (UK) and holds a Bachelor’s (LL.B. 1996) and a Master’s degree in Labour Law and Employment Relations (LL.M., 1998). He is the author of various books including the Cyprus Chapter of “International Business and Investment Guide”, “Supreme Court Cases for 1998”, the Cyprus Chapter of “A Guide to Foreign Executives”, the Cyprus Chapter of “Butterworth’s European Tax & Investment Guide”, the Cyprus Chapter of “Cyprus Industrial Relations”, “The Millennium Bug and Implications on Cyprus Company Law”, “Cyprus Towards the European Union”, “Cyprus Pregnancy Law and the European Union”, the Introduction Chapter of “Labour Law and Intellectual Property Law” and the “Supreme Court’s Case Law Digest 1996-2000”. He is a member of the International Association for the Protection of Human Rights, International Amnesty in Cyprus, the Council of Europe (Member, Democratic Leadership Program) and the Young Lawyers and Pupil Advocates Association (Founding Member; Member of the Board).

Costas Stamatiou is a senior associate in the international law firm of ANDREAS NEOCLEOUS & CO LLC. He graduated from the University of Wales, Cardiff in 2001 and obtained an LL.M in Legal Aspects of Marine Affairs from there in 2002 and an LL.M in European Legal Studies from Bristol University in 2003. He was admitted to the Cyprus Bar in 2004. As at 2009, he is a member of the shipping committee of the Cyprus Bar Association. His main areas of practice are admiralty and shipping, corporate and commercial law and associated litigation. He is the author of “Establishing the Boundaries: Cyprus offshore oil, gas and shipping industries”, published in Lloyd’s List Cyprus, September 2005; “The Shortsea Shipping Market of the Future”, Lloyd’s List Cyprus, September 2006; “The Marco Polo Programme & Cyprus: Financing the Motorways of the Seas”, ICCLR 2006, 17(8), N68. His university theses were on the subjects of “Carrier’s Liability: A comparative study of the CMI/UNCITRAL Draft Instrument on Transport law, the Hague, Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules”, Cardiff, 2002 and “Aspects of EC Competition Law in Maritime Transport”, Bristol, 2003. Costas Stamatiou is co-author of “The New Era of EC Competition Law in the Shipping Industry”, ICCLR, 2009, 20(1); “Ready, Steady, Drill: the legislation governing the race for Cyprus’s offshore hydrocarbons reserves”, ICCLR. 2007, 18(12);”Shipping – The Cyprus Way”, Offshore Investment – September 2007; "Black Boxes and the Proposed EU Fundamental Principles on the Investigation of Accidents in the Maritime Industry”, ICCLR. 2007, 18(5); ’Dispute Resolution Handbook 2007/08’ by Practical Law Co; “Legal Aspects of the ISM Code”, ICCLR 2006 17(7); “Cyprus: Commercial Shipping”, ICCLR 2005 16(11); “Cyprus: Forum Non Conveniens in the European Era”, ICCLR 2005 16 (8); “Cyprus Company law - Corporate Governance”, ICCLR 2005 16(6). He is also a co-author of the Cyprus chapter of the “Encyclopaedia of International Commercial Litigation” published by Kluwer Law International and a co-author of the forthcoming second edition of INTRODUCTION TO CYPRUS LAW.

Eugenia is a Human Resources and Training Professional with over 15 years experience in the field and a prior range of business experience including Sales, Marketing, Administration and Finance. She is currently a freelance consultant specializing in training professionals and providing expert advice in the fields of Learning and Development, Employee Relations, Coaching, Counselling, Organisational Development, Policies and Procedures, Compensation and Benefits, Employment Law, Recruitment, Office Administration, Payroll and HRIS. Before coming to Cyprus, she worked for companies such as Tech Data Middle East as HR Officer, for Advanced Business Systems as HR Manager and for L’Oreal (Parfums et Beaute) Middle East as Finance Executive. She is the holder of a Business Management diploma from the University of Phoenix of Southern Queensland (USA), a Training Practice diploma from Girton College of Cambridge (UK) and she is certified as a Professional in Human Resources from the Human Resources Certification Institute (USA). She is a member of the Certified Institute of Personnel Development Society of Human Resources Management, the Cyprus Human Resource Management Association, the International Relations & Publications Committee of Toastmasters International and the Nicosia Crusaders. In addition, she is a member of the EDU Club society and the Global Business Women (GBW) Group.

George Z. Georgiou studied law at the University of Bristol, England and was called to the Bar of England and Wales by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. After leaving England, he trained for a further year in Cyprus after which he was called to the Cyprus Bar. He worked for a number of years in one of Cyprus’ leading law offices, dealing with many high profile cases, before opening his own practice. George is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb), the European Circuit and the Nicosia Bar Association. George’s office has close ties with other law offices in Europe and USA, a number of accounting and actuarial firms in Cyprus and the UK and the independent Cypriot land valuation firm of A.Z. Georgiou & Associates. The Office offers a wide variety of legal work, both contentious and non-contentious.

Kypros Ioannides read law at Cambridge University (BA, MA) and was called to the bar by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. He is a practicing advocate in Cyprus and a partner of the law firm KGMC Advocates (Artemis, Hadjianastassiou, Anastassiades & Ioannides LLC). Kypros has been appointed as examiner by the Cyprus Legal Council and lectures on Company Law and is a member of the Companies and Tax Planning Committee of the Cyprus Bar Association. His areas of practice include Corporate and Commercial Law, Betting and Gaming, Admiralty and Shipping, Employment Law, and Intellectual Property Law. His litigation experience includes international litigation and the taking of urgent interim measures for freezing assets within the jurisdiction of the Cypriot courts.

Marios Charalambides is the Chief Executive Officer and the Tax Consultant of Morgan & Morgan Trust (Cyprus) Ltd. Morgan and Morgan is an international group, offering corporate and fiduciary services in over 15 countries. Marios’ focuses on advising clients on complex accounting matters and directs them in the proper application of International Financial Reporting Standards. He is an expert in Cyprus taxation issues and he frequently advises his clients in other company operational matters. He qualified as a certified accountant with Ernst and Young in Cyprus where he worked till December 2006. He was admitted as a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant in November 2008.

Marios is currently the Head of Fund Management at Piraeus Bank (Cyprus) responsible for setting up and developing a department. Additionally, he manages an equity fund that focuses on the Eastern Med area. Prior to Joining Piraeus Bank Cyprus Marios was with Marfin Laiki Bank from 2000 to end of 2007 as the Manager of the Asset Management Department. There he managed a number of pension funds, insurance companies and the first ever Luxembourg based fund to invest in Greek and Cyprus equity markets. He was also the project manager for the introduction of local mutual funds at the Bank. Marios has a total of 16 years of experience and has held a variety of roles at asset management and audit firms. Prior to joining Marfin Laiki he was with Ernst & Young in Cyprus and BDO Stoy Hayward in London.

His specialization is in equities with emphasis on regional markets (especially Greece and Cyprus). He is also experienced in the use of derivatives for the purpose of hedging. He has a Bachelor of Science from the University of East Anglia in Business, Finance and Economics and received the Association of Chartered Accountants designation in 1996. Additionally he holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from 2000. He is a founding member and first President of the CFA Society of Cyprus. Finally, he is a member of the government of Cyprus advisory committee for the setting up of collective investment schemes in Cyprus.

Menelaos Kyprianou, is a Partner at the law firm of Michael Kyprianou & Co. He obtained an LLB Degree from the University of Nottingham in the UK. He is also a Barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple (UK) having been called to the Bar in 1994. Menelaos is also a member of the Cyprus Bar Association and the International Bar Association. In April 2007 he was appointed by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cyprus to the position of member of the Board of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. He has extensive experience as a corporate lawyer and has been instructed by leading overseas law firms to represent clients in Cyprus in international money laundering cases. He specializes in corporate law, civil litigation and arbitration, international trade, maritime law and European law. He has given a number of lectures before including on Cyprus as a Venue for the Establishment of a Holding Company and on Anti-Money Laundering issues.

Nayia is the managing director of Amicorp (Cyprus) Ltd, an international corporate service provider specialising in tax structuring solutions for clients. She has more than 10 years of experience in tax obtained both in the UK and in Cyprus working for major Accountancy Firms. Nayia has specialised in local and international taxation and is also knowledgeable on VAT, Social Insurance and other tax related matters. Her experience includes tax planning projects for major multinationals operating through Cyprus as well as advising on the operating taxation affairs of local companies. She has also been involved in negotiating tax assessments and obtaining tax rulings from the Inland Revenue. Nayia is currently working in the areas of Cypriot and foreign Companies’, Trust and other laws which affect international businesses. Nayia has studied in the UK and has obtained the title of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy with Law with honours. In 2000 she became an Associate Member (ACA) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales following the completion of her training contract with a London based accountancy firm. Nayia is an active member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus and has served (and currently serving) as a member of the VAT and Educational committees advising on the taxation needs of the Cypriot professional world. She is also involved in the promotion of Cyprus as an international business center by preparing several publications and articles which exhibit the importance of Cyprus as a tax efficient jurisdiction for international businesses. Nayia has presented in major conferences in Cyprus and abroad in relation to tax and international tax planning matters. She has also taught many tax modules for different organizations and clients.

Nicholas is an international tax and business consultant. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Accounting and Business studies, from the State University of New York. He is a member of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) in the United Kingdom and Cyprus. He has 5 year experience in various auditing firms, working in taxation, auditing and business consulting (Coopers and Lybrand, Touché Ross, Clark Kenneth Leventhal and Moore Stephens) and 13 year experience as Tax Assessor in the Inland Revenue Department of Cyprus. Having worked in the department of offshore companies examination and tax clearance certificates, he is experienced and specialised in International Business & Tax Laws and Treaties. He also has specialised experience regarding the examination of accounts for land and building developers. Since January 2005 he has established his own business as a professional accountant and general business consultant. He is an associate of a worldwide organization on how to do business in 178 countries and is an international Partner of Klako Group Firm of Professional Accountants in China. He is an expert on giving professional opinion on financial statement analysis and proposals on how to improve profitability and overcome economic crisis, by giving re-structuring scenarios and propositions.

Olga has been a practicing lawyer since 2000 specialising in Corporate Law, Competition, Mergers & Acquisitions, Pharmaceuticals, Information Technology and Energy Law. She is appointed as Arbitrator for domain name disputes concerning the .eu European top-level domain. She is also an appointed investigator for the Lawyers’ Disciplinary Council.She is a member of the Publications and Conference Planning Committees of the Computer Law Association as well as a founding member and Secretary of the Computer Law Special Interest Group of the Cyprus Computer Society. She is the holder of a Bachelor of Laws in English Law and French Law from the University of East Anglia, UK (LL.B Hons, 1998) and a Master’s in Laws in European Law with Telecommunications Law from the University College London (UCL), UK (LL.M, 1999).She is also the holder of a Diploma of French Higher Legal Studies from the University of Robert Schumann, Strasbourg (1997). Olga has trained at the European Commission, at the Information Society Directorate and holds a Diploma for Teaching Law at University Level from UCL. She is a frequent speaker at various conferences and the author of legal articles and books on Cypriot legislation concerning, inter alia, Company Law, Cyprus internet Law, Financial Assistance under EU programs, Sale of Goods and Consumer Protection, Competition Law, Telecommunications, Data Protection and Privacy, as well as Domain Names in Cyprus.

Pericles Spyrou is the Managing Director of Morgan & Morgan Trust (Cyprus) Ltd. Morgan and Morgan is an international group, offering corporate and fiduciary services in over 15 countries. He spends most of his time at the Cyprus office and regularly travels to lecture and to meet with both prospective and existing clients all over the world. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Blick Rothenberg in London and he then worked at JP Morgan. He is an associate member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and a member of the International Tax Planning Association.

He works as an internal legal counsel for OTEnet Telecommunications Limited in Cyprus. In the past he has worked in the legal department of the European Investment Bank as well as in the Law Service of the European Commission. He is a member of the English Bar Council (Barrister at Law) and holds 2 postgraduate diplomas in European Law from the College of Europe (Belgium) as well as from Rennes University (France).

Stelios was born in Nicosia. He obtained his law degree from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki and he was admitted in Cyprus Bar Association in 1995. Today he is an associate at G. & A. Ladas Law Office. He is specialized in Intellectual Property, Corporate Law, management of property matters of Eu and non - Eu citizens in Cyprus, civil litigation. He is member of the Cyprus Association for the European Law, he was appointed member of the Tribunal Committee of the Cyprus Handball Federation from 2002 - 2005, and appointed member of the Tribunal Committee of the Cyprus Basket Federation from 2003 - 2006. He attended in various seminars concerning corporate, intellectual property and mediation matters.

Stella was born in Nicosia in 1968. She graduated from the University of Leicester (LL.B) in 1990 and from Boston University, School of Law (LL.M in International Banking Law), in 1991. In 1992 she was admitted in the Cyprus Bar. Her main area of expertise is International and Cyprus Corporate and Banking Law. She has been for many years the Legal Adviser of an International Banking Unit in Cyprus and other international companies and prior to that she has been extensively involved in the Litigation Department of Chryssafinis & Polyviou Law Office. She is heading the International Corporate Department of her Firm and is dealing with all related matters from the incorporation of companies and setting up of company structures to the provision of all the necessary legal support on the management and annual operation of the companies.