Irene Lynch Fannon

Irene Lynch Fannon is a Professor Emerita at the School of Law. On taking early retirement from UCC she worked at Matheson LLP as Head of Knowledge Management (2021-2024).  Irene Chaired the Insolvency Committee of the Company Law Review Group and was also a member of the EU Commission DG Justice Committee of Experts on Insolvency and Rescue (having been appointed in 2021). Both appointments expired in 2026 due to the end of term of office in the case of the CLRG and the closing of the EC Commission Committee following the passing of the INSOL III Harmonising Directive 2026/799.
She is a member of the Regulatory Decisions Panel of the Central Bank.
She is a member of the Institute of Directors.
Before retiring from UCC, Irene was the Principal Investigator on JCOERE, (2018-2020)  a project funded by the European Union (DG Justice) on European judicial co-operation in corporate insolvency and rescue, an important policy initiative from the EU, now part of a wider policy drive towards harmonisation of insolvency and rescue law in the EU. Reports from this project are available at www.ucc.ie/jcoere/en. She and the JCOERE team co-authored Corporate Recovery in an Integrated Europe (Edward Elgar, 2022) on cross border recognition of orders and judicial co-operation in European business restructuring. She is a member of CERIL www.ceril.eu a network of European insolvency and rescue lawyers and has contributed to a number of publications through this network including In and Out of Solvency (Wolter Kluwers, 2025); European Preventive Restructuring (Hart, Beck, Nomos, 2021) and European Insolvency Regulation (Hart, Beck, Nomos, 2019).  In 2023 she published a Third Edition of Corporations and Partnerships in Ireland with Kluwer International Encyclopaedia of Laws providing a full summary of Irish Company Law. In addition, Irene maintains an interest in comparative corporate law theory. She is currently focussed on issues of sustainability and corporate action. She co-edited a collection with Prof. Beate Sjafjell of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law called Creating Corporate Sustainability: Gender as an Agent for Change (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Through her involvement in  the SMART project (Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade) at Oslo University she published a number of chapters and papers including a chapter on multinational tax avoidance in C. Gammage and T. Novitz (eds) Sustainable Trade, Investment and Finance: Toward responsible and coherent regulatory frameworks. (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019). Her earlier book Working Within Two Kinds of Capitalism (Hart Publications, Oxford and Portland Oregon) led to a number of publications in this area. Irene was a visiting academic at the Oxford Faculty of Law in 2014 and was a visiting Professor at Cleveland Marshall College of Law in addition to holding the Baker Hostetler Chair at that law school during the academic years 2002-2004. She was a European Commission expert evaluator for the Marie Curie Actions under FP6 and has reviewed for the Irish Jurist, the Dublin University Law Journal, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and for Cambridge University Press. 
During her time as Chair of the Insolvency Sub Committee of the CLRG the committee worked on a number of reports including a report which provided a template for SCARP - a rescue process for small businesses, enacted in the Companies (Rescue Process for Small and Micro Enterprises) Act 2021 and a report on addressing aggressive restructuring practices which led to legislative changes under the Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Act 2024.  This committee of the CLRG advised on the INSOL III Directive 2026/799. Irene haas served on a number of Government bodies including the Audit Review Group established by the Government following the Public Accounts Committee Enquiry into DIRT and other irregularities (2002);  the Business Regulation Forum, the High Level Group on Business Regulation 2007-2011. During her career at UCC Irene held a number of management positions including Head of the Department of Law at University College Cork from 1999-2002, Dean of the Faculty of Law during 2000-2002 and Head of the College of Business and Law, 2008-2013, during which time she was a member of the University Management Team.  She has been an External Examiner including Examining at doctoral level at TCD, UCD, Nottingham Trent University, the Incorporated Law Society and the University of Northumbria, UL and DCU and has been an Examiner in Company Law for the Kings Inn. She is a graduate of University College Dublin (BCL, 1982); Oxford University (BCL, 1986, Senior Scholar, Somerville College) and the University of Virginia (Doctor of Juridical Science, 1999). She qualified as a Solicitor in 1985 with The Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.  

At present my research interests continue to focus on two areas, the law of corporate insolvency and rescue and comparative corporate law theory.  

I have an international and national reputation in these areas. My books which I co-authored on corporate insolvency and rescue law have been cited in both the Irish High Court and the Supreme Court.

Most recently, and before retiring from the School of Law at University College Cork I was the Principal Investigator on an EU Commission-DG Justice funded project on Judicial Co-operation in the context of insolvency law, with particular emphasis on corporate rescue and restructuring. This is an important EU policy area reflecting the policy aims of the European Insolvency Regulation Recast 848/2015 and the EU Preventive Restructuring Directive 1023/2019. The JCOERE Project (Project No. 800807) is based at the School of Law at UCC. You will find more details of our consortium and our research on our website. https://www.ucc.ie/en/jcoere/

I am also interested in corporate law theory. In the late 1990s, with the support of the then Faculty of Law at UCC,  I completed my doctoral studies at the University of Virginia comparing EU and US understandings of corporate function and theory with a view to explaining the entirely different treatment of employees as stakeholders in these regulatory trading blocs. I was awarded  a Doctorate of Juridical Science, SJD by the University of Virginia in 1999.
 
This research resulted in the publication of  Working Within Two Kinds of Capitalism(Hart Publications, Oxford-Portland, Oregon, 2003 X+160pp) together with further book chapters on comparative corporate law theory (EU-US) which are detailed below.  My continued interest in Corporate law theory has led to the development of a new module in Contemporary Issues in Company Law (LW3347) and engagement in a H2020 sustainability project entitled SMART based at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. I co-edited a book entitled Creating Corporate Sustainability: Gender as an Agent for Change (CUP, 2018) to which I contributed three chapters including one entitled "A Toad We Have to Swallow" about the proposed EU Directive on Women on Corporate Boards.  I  also contributed a chapter on the EU Commission's action against Ireland relating to taxation of multinational corporations "Apple Tax: The Core Issues." In Gammage and Novitz: Sustainable Trade and Investment and Finance (Edward Elgar, 2019). I continue to work in this important area of sustainability and corporate action.

Company Law, Corporate Law Theory, Contemporary Issues in Corporate Law, The Law of Insolvency and Restructuring..