Saunders was a joint winner, sharing the $15,000 prize pool with Jennifer Devlin of the Justice Department of Wellington in New Zealand.

Two research prizes are awarded each year to research essays on important issues affecting current banking and financial services law and practice which are relevant to Australia and New Zealand.

Explaining the basis of his winning research paper, Has FSR fixed the problems with the regulation of securities and derivitives?, Saunders told Lawyers Weekly: "The regulation of derivatives and securities has long been considered to be unsatisfactory. The Financial Services Reform Act 2001 radically changed the way derivatives and securities are regulated under the Corporations Act 2001. The paper examines the FSR reforms and argues that the position has been improved but FSR has not fully addressed many of the problems that existed."