'This book is an excellently constructed piece of legal writing which covers a topic of significant social and economic importance. It is a work of excellent analytical clarity and contains a vast amount of research and considerable detail. . . Academics in corporate law and corporate governance in addition to corporate social responsibility and company law generally will find much to interest them in this publication as will students who study in these areas, particularly postgraduates.' - John Quiggin, Journal of Business Law 'This is legal scholarship of the finest kind, concerned with an issue of supreme political, economic and social importance. Professor Keay takes the debate on the object of the modern public corporation by the scruff of its neck and skilfully navigates between the Scylla and Charybdis of the shareholder/stakeholder debate. This book, characterised by admirable analytical clarity and a huge amount of research, faithfully summarises the debate hitherto, and propels us to the next stage with a powerful argument, which challenges, effectively, both the stakeholder and shareholder theories.' -Harry Rajak, University of Sussex School of Law, UK The Corporate Objective addresses a question that has been subject to much debate: what should be the objective of public corporations? It examines the two dominant theories that address this issue, the shareholder primacy and stakeholder theories, and finds that both have serious shortcomings. The book goes on to develop a new theory, called the Entity Maximisation and Sustainability Model. Under this model, directors are to endeavor to increase the overall long-run market value of the corporation as an entity. At the same time as maximizing wealth, directors have to ensure that the corporation survives and is able to stay afloat and pursue the development of the corporation's position. Andrew Keay seeks to explain and justify the model and discusses how the model is enforced, how investors fit into the model, how directors are to act and how profits are to be allocated. Analyzing in depth the existing theories which seek to explain the corporate objective, this book will appeal to academics in corporate law and corporate governance as well as law, finance, business ethics, organizational behavior, management, economics, accounting and sociology. Postgraduate students in corporate law and corporate governance, directors, and government regulators will also find much to interest them in this study. Contents: Preface 1. Public Companies: Context, Theory and Objectives 2. Shareholder Primacy 3. Stakeholder Theory 4. An Entity Maximisation and Sustainability Model 5. The Enforcement of the Entity Maximisation and Sustainability Model 6. Investors 7. Managerial Discretion and Accountability 8. Allocation of Profits 9. Epilogue

This book explores whether global music copyright law and the performers' rights regime (PRR) have been able to improve the economic position of artists, as they were originally intended to. The author investigates whether this regime effectively addresses contemporary issues regarding royalty payments and cover songs in Sri Lankan music, drawing on the empirical findings of a case study she conducted on the Sinhala music industry. She finds that the PRR developed internationally and implemented in Sri Lanka is predicated on a particular view of the role of performers and their relationships with other actors in the music industry; although this view can be found in the USA, UK and India, it does not seem to reflect the established practices and relationships within Sri Lanka's contemporary music industry. While providing a socio-historical and legal analysis of these differing industrial settings and investigating the manner in which they impact the PRR's (in)ability to deliver improved economic security for Sinhala singers, the book also offers policymakers recommendations on how to supplement current national copyright law and the PRR in order to provide a secure economic position for music artists in Sri Lanka.

This book covers technologies that pose new challenges for consumer policy, creative developments that can help protect consumers' economic interests, innovative approaches to addressing perennial consumer concerns, and the challenges entailed by emerging ways of creating and delivering consumer products and services. In addition, it reflects on past successes and failures of consumer law and policy, explores opportunities for moving consumer law in a different direction, and discusses potential threats to consumer welfare, especially in connection with the changing political landscape in many parts of the world. Several chapters examine consumer law in individual countries, while others have an international focus.

The book starts from the premise that the current aviation framework, in Brazil, cannot sustain a full liberalisation in the long run. While the competition rules in place offer a strong framework, which only requires small modifications, these rules are not "enough" to foster a "healthy" liberalisation. In fact, until recently, Brazilian airlines were operating in a homogenous market, where competition was artificial. This artificial competition, obtained through the imposition of a legal obligation to provide water and a snack and grant a 23kg bag allowance, has resulted in a highly concentrated domestic market with very few players. Compared to other same size markets, such as China or India, Brazil is far behind in terms of airlines operating at national level. Consequently, the opening of the domestic market must be closely regulated to avoid national carriers suffocating under external pressure. For this reason, state intervention during the liberalisation process is crucial. State intervention is also with regard to the protection of passengers. The other major problem is the protection framework for passengers which is much too uncertain and burdensome. In a sense, it is detrimental to the domestic market and passengers. Indeed, there is no harmonisation of passenger compensation leading to contradictory judgments and possible high moral damages which hinders legal certainty for airlines. Compared to the situation in the EU, in Brazil, airlines have a limited range of defences, which are often dismissed by courts. This book, therefore, critically analyses the policies and regulations in place by mainly comparing the Brazilian framework to the European one. This choice has been motivated by the fact that European liberalisation is considered the best so far, and as Brazil is starting this process much later, it could benefit from the European experience. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and practitioners interested in the Brazilian system.

This book covers in one handy volume all the major topics associated with ship operations. Carefully, co-ordinated to ensure breadth, relevance and lack of overlap, the topics covered are addressed by authors are the very top of their profession, whether in legal practice or academia, and are presented in a manner which is topical and clear. Part I offers a detailed and critical analysis of issues of contemporary importance concerning new liability regimes and developments. Part 2 discusses how parties, in particular ship operators, attempt in contemporary practice to allocate their risks concerning ship operations. Part 3 evaluates the legal position of those involved in more 'back office' operations. The book provides an invaluable guide to recent legal and practical developments and offers a comprehensive, well-informed and thoroughly practical guide on what is a very complex and developing area of law. It will therefore be of great use to legal practitioners and administrators of ship operations worldwide, as well as students in this area and academics associated with maritime law generally.

This fourth edition of Business Law offers comprehensive and accessible coverage of the key aspects of business law. Established legal topics such as the English legal system, Contract, Consumer, Intellectual Property, Company and Employment Law, and emerging areas such as Health, Safety and Environmental Law are all addressed in the context of business. The work has been thoroughly updated to include all the major recent developments in business law, such as the new EU Trade Secrets Directive and case outcomes decided since the publication of the last edition. The book also discusses the impact of Brexit. In addition, the book features extensive diagrams and tables, revision summaries, reading lists, and clear key case boxes for easy reference. This book is ideal reading for undergraduate law and business studies students, while also applicable to practitioners and those with a more general interest in business law.

This book explores various approaches around the world regarding price term control, and particularly discusses the effectiveness of two major paths: ex ante regulatory and ex post judicial intervention. Price control and its limits are issues that affect all liberal market economies, as well as more regulated markets. For the past several years, courts in many different countries have been confronted with the issue of whether, and to what extent, they should intervene regarding price-related terms in standard form contracts - especially in the area of consumer contracts. Open price clauses, flat remunerations, price adjustment clauses, clauses giving the seller/supplier the right to ask for additional payments, bundling or partitioning practices, etc.: a variety of price related terms are used to manipulate customers' choices, often also by exploiting their behavioral biases. The result is an unfavorable contract that is later challenged in court. However, invalidating a given price term in standard forms e.g. of a banking or utilities contract only has an inter partes effect, which means that in thousands if not millions of similar contracts, the same clauses continue to be used. Effective procedural rules are often lacking. Therefore, pricing patterns that serve to hide rather than to reveal the real cost of goods and services require special attention on the part of regulators. The aim of this book is to determine the various approaches in the world regarding price term control, and particularly to discuss the efficiency of both paths, ex ante regulatory and ex post judicial intervention. Thanks to its broad comparative analysis, this book offers a thorough overview of the methods employed in several countries. It gathers twenty-eight contributions from national rapporteurs and one supra-national rapporteur (EU) to the 2018 IACL Congress held in Fukuoka. These are supplemented by a general report presented at the same IACL Congress, which includes a comparative analysis of the national and supranational reports. The national contributors hail from around the globe, including Africa (1), Asia (5), Europe (17), the European Union (1) and the Americas (5).

In this unique study Marek Dubovec examines contemporary commercial relationships between investors and their intermediaries - relationships based on accounts that hold intangible rights to securities, funds, and commodity contracts. Such accounts have replaced the traditional physical possession and delivery of tangible objects, such as security certificates, coins, and commodities that were previously used in commercial relationships. The author identifies and explains the critical components and functions of the systems for the holding of rights in accounts with intermediaries, identifying underlying principles that should be embodied in modern legislation underpinning the law of accounts. He not only compares the three major account-based systems, but does so from a comparative law perspective. He looks particularly at the differences between developed economies, which have established efficiently functioning accounts-based systems, and the majority of developing economies, which have yet to implement or modernize their accounts-holding systems. Contents: Preface Background P art I: Securities Accounts Relationships 1. Introduction to Part I 2. Securities Account Relationships 3. Transfers of Intermediated Securities, Finality and Security Interests 4. Summary of Part I Part II: Bank Account Relationships 5. Introduction to Part II 6. Bank Account Relationships 7. Funds Transfers, Finality and Security Interests 8. Summary of Part II Part III: Commodity Accounts Relationships 9. Introduction to Part III 10. Commodity Account Relationships 11. Commodity Transfers, Finality and Security Interests 12. Summary of Part III Conclusion Index

This book presents an exploration of a wide range of issues in law, regulation and legal rights in the sectors of information protection, the creative economy and business activities following COVID-19. The debilitative effect of the global pandemic on information protection and creative and business activities is powerful, widespread and deeply influential, bringing a range of uncertainties to these sectors. The effects of the crisis challenge the fundamentals of the legal systems of most countries in their attempt to govern them. Written by international academics from a diversified background of law disciplines and legal systems, this book offers a global vision in exploring the wide range of legal issues caused by the COVID-19 crisis in these fields. The book is organised into three clear thematic parts: Part I looks at information protection and intellectual property rights and strategies; Part II examines contracts, cooperation and mediation in the post-COVID-19 market arena; and Part III discusses issues pertaining to corporate governance and employment rights. The book explores the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic crisis from a global perspective. It will provide invaluable information and guidance in this area to those in the fields of law, politics and economics whose interests are related to information, business and the creative industry, as well as providing indispensable reading to business practitioners and public servants.

Law and the Technologies of the Twenty-First Century provides a contextual account of the way in which law functions in a broader regulatory environment across different jurisdictions. It identifies and clearly structures the four key challenges that technology poses to regulatory efforts, distinguishing between technology as a regulatory target and tool, and guiding the reader through an emerging field that is subject to rapid change. By extensive use of examples and extracts from the texts and materials that form and shape the scholarly and public debates over technology regulation, it presents complex material in a stimulating and engaging manner. Co-authored by a leading scholar in the field with a scholar new to the area, it combines comprehensive knowledge of the field with a fresh approach. This is essential reading for students of law and technology, risk regulation, policy studies, and science and technology studies.

Offering a fresh perspective on "nudging", this book uses legal paternalism to explore how legal systems may promote good policies without ignoring personal autonomy.

Despite the apparent advantages of the internet, there is little debate that it facilitates intellectual property infringements, including infringements of trade mark rights. Infringers not only remain hidden by the anonymity the internet provides but also take advantage of its increasing reach and the associated challenges with regard to cross-border enforcement of rights. These factors, among others, have rendered the internet a growing source of counterfeit and other infringing products. It has, therefore, become necessary for right holders to shift their focus from individual infringers to internet intermediaries, such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs), hosts and navigation providers, which are responsible in numerous ways for making content promoting infringements available to internet users. In light of these developments, this book conducts a comprehensive analysis of the liability of such intermediaries for trade mark infringements and considers the associated issues and challenges in the diverging approaches under which liability may be imposed. At present, however, neither UK trade mark law nor English common-law principles relating to accessorial liability provide a basis to hold internet intermediaries liable for trade mark infringements. As such, this book considers approaches adopted in some of the Continental European countries and the US in order to propose reforms aimed at addressing gaps in the existing legal framework. This book also examines alternative remedies, such as notice and takedown and injunctions, and discusses the associated shortcomings of each of these remedies.

This book focuses on recent developments in consumer law, specifically addressing mandatory disclosures and the topical problem of information overload. It provides a comparative analysis based on national reports from countries with common law and civil law traditions in Asia, America and Europe, and presents the reports in the form of chapters that have been drafted on the basis of a questionnaire, and which use the same structure as the questionnaire to allow them to be easily compared. The book starts with an analysis of the basic assumptions underlying the current consumer protection models and examines whether and how consumer models adapt to the new market conditions. The second part addresses the information obligations themselves, first highlighting the differences in the reported countries before narrowing the analysis down to countries with a general pre-contractual information duty, particularly the transparency requirements that often come with such a duty. The next part examines recent developments in the law on food labelling, commercial practices and unfair contract terms in order to identify whether similar traits can be found in European and non-European jurisdictions. The fourth part of the book focuses on specific information obligations in the financial services and e-commerce sectors, discussing the fact that legislators are experimenting with different forms of summary disclosures in these sectors. The final part provides a critical appraisal of the recent developments in consumer information obligations, addressing the question of whether the multiple criticisms from behavioural sciences necessitate abandonment or refinement of current consumer information models in favour of new, more adequate forms of consumer protection, and providing suggestions.

The European Energy Law Reports are an initiative taken by the organisers of the European Energy Law Seminar which has been organised on an annual basis since 1989 at Noordwijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. The aim of this seminar is to present an overview of the most important legal developments in the field of International, EU and national energy and climate law. Whereas the first seminars concentrated on the developments at EC level, which were the results of the establishment of an Internal Energy Market, the focus has now gradually switched to the developments at the national level following the implementation of the EU Directives with regard to the internal electricity and gas markets. This approach can also be found in these reports.This volume includes chapters on ''Newcomers in the Electricity Market: Aggregators and Storage'', ''Hydropower Concessions in the EU: A Need for Liberalisation or Privatisation?'', ''Investments and des-Investments in the Energy Sector'', ''Offshore Decommissioning in the North Sea'', ''CCS as a Climate Tool: North Sea Practice'' and ''From EU Climate Goals to National Climate Laws''

A clear and up-to-date textbook for students of Scots commercial law and business law. It will also be of use to practitioners. Scots Commercial Law is a collaborative work bringing together expertise from academia and practice.

Title 13 presents regulations governing the activities of the Small Business Administration and the Department of Commerce in the areas of business credit, finance, and economic development. Additions and revisions to this section of the code are posted annually by January. Publication follows within six months.

Exploring the role played by cooperation in the law and management of modern, complex contracts, this book contrasts an in-depth review of case law with a large-scale empirical study of the views of commercial actors responsible for the outcomes of these contracts.

The book ties together much of the existing work on the history of oil and gas regulation in Iran and builds on that foundation to propose a coherent and balanced approach within the framework of the NCC.

Exploring obstacles to effective compensation of victims of competition infringements, this book categorises the types of victims harmed and the types of losses arisen from these infringements to identify to what extent there is a need for enhanced private competition law enforcement in the European Union (EU) and the best way to address this need. It shows that there is a genuine need for facilitating consumer damages actions and that consumer claims are the only claims that can be pursued in a collective redress action. In order to compensate consumers and overcome barriers to effective enforcement of their right to damages, it structures a collective redress action for consumers by considering the following elements: i. the formation of the group, ii. the type of representative party iii. funding mechanisms and iv. calculation and distribution of damages.