Stephen Harder

Biography

Stephen Harder is an international lawyer, currently based in Shanghai. He has been a partner at Clifford Chance LLP, a leading global law firm with headquarters in London since 1995, and he has been the managing partner of the firm's mainland China practice since 2002. Harder's recent practice focused on cross border transactions relating to China, including financings in Africa, South America, and Russia. During his career, Harder has been based in New York, Brussels, Warsaw, Moscow, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. When based in Europe in the early 1990s, he was a legal counsel for the Russian and Polish mass privatization program, as well as counsel to the Polish government in its "London Club" sovereign debt negotiations. Harder wrote in the International Financial Law Review on "China's Sovereign Wealth Fund: The Need for Caution" and spoke in recent years at U.S. law and business schools on "China in the Balance: Needed Reforms, Vested Interests and the Choices Facing China's Leaders." He also published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences on "Political Finance in the Liberal Republic." He is a native of Boston and a resident of Rockport, Maine.

Research Interest

Business and Society