JURIST has retracted “Back-Alley Banking in China: the Next Financial Crisis” by Dr. Bashar Malkawi. The piece was originally published in our Academic Commentary section on 9 November 2013.

On 7 January 2015, we were advised that the piece was copied from another author’s work. We investigated this claim and found it to be credible. As part of our investigation, we contacted Dr. Malkawi who acknowledged that the now-retracted piece was not a product of his own efforts.

Dr. Malkawi’s piece drew several passages verbatim from the work of Professor Simin Gao, now of the Tsinghua University School of Law. Professor Gao addressed the issue of shadow banking in China in her SJD dissertation while a student at the University of Pennsylvania, and circulated a version of that paper for peer review after her dissertation was complete. The work published in JURIST was derived to an unacceptable degree from this circulated work.

JURIST began as an outlet for law professors to share their research, findings, opinions and theories. As such, we sincerely regret the false attribution of this unique work of academic effort to another author.

Any questions or comments about this retraction should be directed to Andrew Morgan, Executive Director, at executivedirector@jurist.org.