prof. dr. René Smits

About René Smits

Professor René Smits is law professor at the University of Amsterdam and consultant. His field of law is the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). As a consultant, René Smits gives legal and strategic advice on EMU and on financial sector regulation and supervision.

In 2013, René Smits was appointed one of the assessors (co-decision maker in respect of rulings on infringements and mergers) at the Belgian Competition Authority. Since 2014, he has been an Alternate Member of the Administrative Board of Review, the body of independent outsiders entrusted with administrative review of the supervisory decisions of the European Central Bank.

At De Nederlandsche Bank N.V. (DNB, the Dutch central bank), René Smits held positions in banking supervision. For twelve years, he was legal advisor to the Executive Board (General Counsel) and Head of the Legal Department. In that capacity, René Smits was responsible for input into EU directives on banking supervision and for the preparations of EMU. Whilst at DNB, he was a member of the Legal Committee of the European System of Central Banks (LEGCO). At the Netherlands Competition Authority (Nederlandse Mededingingautoriteit, NMa) René Smits was Director of the Legal Department and, subsequently, Chief Legal Counsel.

From 1 April 2013 until 1 March 2014, he was a strategic advisor at Legal Affairs at the Authority Consumers & Markets (Autoriteit Consument & Markt, or ACM), the successor to NMa. At NMa (ACM), René Smits worked on fining policy, private enforcement of competition law, and the relationship between competition and sustainability. As compliance officer, he also was responsible for maintaining the integrity of the enforcement agency.

René Smits is a member of the Committee on International Monetary Law of the International Law Association and an expert at P.R.I.M.E. Finance, an organization for dispute resolution and advice in the financial sector. He regularly gives presentations and lectures. From 2002-2013, he has been co-organizer and chairman of an annually recurring seminar for central bank lawyers in Cambridge (UK).

René Smits has numerous publications to his name, inter alia on European monetary law, banking supervision and the institutional design of the European System of Central Banks His thesis The European Central Bank – Institutional Aspects (Kluwer Law International, 1997) discusses the ECB from a legal perspective.. René Smits (1954) studied sociology and law at the Free University in Amsterdam. His interest in interreligious and intercultural dialogue is reflected in a publication that he edited: Islamic banking and the influence of religion on the law (Eleven International Publishing, 2012).

In 2020 René Smits won the award of Lecturer of the Year 2020 at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam. Students appreciate his lectures for the creative way in which everyone is involved.