This book focuses on four topical and interconnected, innovative pathways to civil justice within the context of securing and improving access to justice: the use of Artificial Intelligence and its interactions with judicial systems; ADR and ODR tracks in privatising justice systems; the effects of increased self-representation on access to justice; and court specialization and the establishment of commercial courts to counter the trend of vanishing court trials. Top academics and experts from Europe, the US and Canada address these topics in a critical and multidisciplinary manner, combining legal, socio-legal and empirical insights. The book is part of 'Building EU Civil Justice', a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council. It will be of interest to scholars and policymakers, as well as practitioners working in the areas of civil justice, alternative dispute resolution, court systems, and legal tech. The chapters "Introduction: The Future of Access to Justice - Beyond Science Fiction" and "Constituting a Civil Legal System Called "Just": Law, Money, Power, and Publicity" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book, written in three parts, covers the basics of the international trade, financing and the legal framework related to the law of carriage of goods by sea, elaborates on bills of lading in depth and sea waybills and ship's delivery orders in brief and charterparties in depth. While the book is based on the English law, cases and materials from other jurisdictions, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, India, the USA, and Australia are brought in to provide an international perspective. The practical analyses, commentary and critiques of cases would be a useful guide for practitioners in developing case arguments. Although written with practitioners, academicians and students in mind, the book will also serve as a useful guide for sea carriers, freight forwarders, international traders, financiers, etc. as the complex subject is presented in reader-friendly and easy to grasp manner.

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).

This Volume of the AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation explores the key trends in InsurTech and the potential legal and regulatory issues that accompany them. There is a proliferation of ideas and concepts within InsurTech that will fundamentally change the market in the next few years. These innovations have the potential to change the way the insurance industry works and alter the relationships between customers and insurers, resulting in insurance products that are more closely aligned to individual preferences and priced more appropriately to the risk. Increasing use of technology in the insurance sector is having both a disruptive and transformative impact on areas including product development, distribution, modelling, underwriting and claims and administration practice. The result is a new industry, known as InsurTech. But while the insurance market looks to technology for greater efficiency, regulators are beginning to raise concerns about managing potential risks. The first part of the book examines technological innovations relevant for insurance, such as FinTech, InsurTech, Sharing Economy, and the Internet of Things. The second part then gathers contributions on insurance contract law in a digitalized world, while the third part focuses on cyber insurance and robots. Last but not least, the fourth part of the book discusses legal and ethical questions regarding autonomous vehicles and transportation, including the shipping industry, as well as their impact on the insurance sector and civil liability. Written by legal scholars and practitioners, the book offers international, comparative and European perspectives. The Chapters "FinTech, InsurTech and the Regulators" by Viktoria Chatzara, "Smart Contracts in Insurance. A Law and Futurology Perspective" by Angelo Borselli and "Room for Compulsory Product Liability Insurance in the European Union for Smart Robots?" by Aysegul Bugra are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com. All three open access chapters were funded by BIPAR.

This book presents the latest findings relating to behavioral economics and the digital tools applied to contract management. There has been a decisive change in the role of contracts in the past decade, with contracts being transformed from purely legal necessities designed to protect against worst-case scenarios into tools for optimizing ongoing and mutually profitable business relationships with customers. There is an increasing emphasis on tight contracts, where time-risk and additional costs are passed on to the prime contractor, who may suffer heavy penalties in the event of non-performance. Contracts shape the behavior of the parties involved and as such have a major impact on project success. The contract manager's goals are to protect the interests of the company and its shareholders by minimizing the company's financial and contractual liabilities and to maximize its profitability while ensuring end-user satisfaction. The contract is usually written before the design is fully developed, and there is often a mismatch between contractual specifications and what the customer actually wants. Good contract management entails preserving the rights of the contractor by ensuring all parties respect their contractual obligations; providing advice to the project managers and engineering team; preparing profitable amendments to contracts or change requests; maintaining good record-keeping in the event that claims arise; filing notices when necessary; and guiding the project to a profitable conclusion. Like the ancient Chinese game of Go, moves made early in the game (notification of events) can shape the nature of a potential conflict one hundred moves later (arbitration threat). Contract management can also smooth the relationship between partners, allowing well-balanced "don't-trade-a-dollar-for-a-penny" contracts to be managed through an established process rather than as sporadic events (we cannot claim to be in control of our business if we are not in control of the contracts on which it depends). Managing a contract with a mix of incomplete manuals, fragmented information, and poor planning can drive companies to "reinvent the wheel." Contract management promotes a three-phase sequence to streamline information flows across the contract lifecycle, from the bid phase to performance, project closeout, and final payments.

In this book, the author analyses the law and practice relating to the classification, drafting, validity and enforcement of contracts relating to jurisdiction and choice of law. The focus is on English law, EU law and common law measures, but there is also some comparative material built in. The book will be useful in particular to practising lawyers seeking to draft, interpret or enforce the types of contract discussed, but the in-depth discussion will also be valuable to academic lawyers specialising in private international law. Written by an academic who is also a practising barrister, this book gives in-depth coverage of how the instruments and principles of private international law can be used for the resolution of cross-border or multi-jurisdictional disputes. It examines the operation and application of the Brussels Regulation, the Rome Convention and the Hague Convention on Exclusive Choice of Court Agreements in such disputes, but also discusses the judgments and decisions of the courts in significant cases such as Turner v Grovit, Union Discount v Zoller, and De Wolf v Cox. Much of the book is given over to practical evaluation of how agreements on jurisdiction and choice of law should be put together, with guidance on, amongst other things, drafting of the agreements (including some sample clauses), severability of agreements, consent, and the resolution of disputes by arbitration.

Arbitration and jurisdiction agreements are frequently used in transnational commercial contracts to reduce risk, gain efficacy and acquire certainty and predictability. Because of the similarities between these two types of procedural autonomy agreements, they are often treated in a similar way by courts and practitioners. This book offers a comprehensive study of the prerequisites, effectiveness, and enforcement of exclusive jurisdiction and arbitration agreements in international dispute resolution. It examines whether jurisdiction and arbitration clauses have identical effects in private international law and whether they have been or should be given the same treatment by most countries in the world. By comparing the treatment of these clauses in the US, China, UK and EU, Zheng Sophia Tang demonstrates how, in practice, exclusive jurisdiction and arbitration agreements are enforced. The book considers whether the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements could be treated as a litigating counterpart to the New York Convention, and whether it could work successfully to facilitate judicial cooperation and party autonomy in international commerce. This book breaks new ground in combining updated materials in EU, US and UK law with unique resources on Chinese law and practice. It will be valuable for academics and practitioners working in the field of private international law and international arbitration.

This book analyses and compares the benefits and drawbacks of shareholder activism in corporations under US American and German law, applying means of new institutional economics. The analysis concentrates on three fields of action of active shareholders in targeted corporations: nominations and elections, transaction decisions and financial decisions. The author evaluates and compares the effectiveness of the means which active shareholders use and of the limitations they face. She concludes that shareholder activism has benefits and drawbacks. Both require legal actions under the two jurisdictions, such as stronger nomination and election rights under US American law and more effective disclosure obligations under German law.

Making Commercial Law Through Practice 1830-1970 adds a new dimension to the history of Britain's commerce, trade manufacturing and financial services, by showing how they have operated in law over the last one hundred and forty years. In the main law and lawyers were not the driving force; regulation was largely absent; and judges tended to accommodate commercial needs, so that market actors were able to shape the law through their practices. Using legal and historical scholarship, the author draws on archival sources previously unexploited for the study of commercial practice and the law's role in it. This book will stimulate parallel research in other subject areas of law. Modern commercial lawyers will learn a great deal about the current law from the story of its evolution, and economic and business historians will see how the world of commerce and trade operated in a legal context.

Multi-Sided Music Platforms and the Law explores the legal and regulatory frameworks surrounding copyright protection, competition and privacy concerns arising from the way multi-sided platforms use copyright-protected content in digital advertising. This book suggests how stakeholders in Africa, and their advisors, may ingenuously reform and apply various legal and regulatory frameworks to address these issues which arise from the manner in which multi-sided platforms use copyright-protected content in digital advertising. The book critically engages with the regulatory efforts in other jurisdictions, particularly the EU, with a view to bringing an African perspective to the debate and practice. It undertakes a consideration of this issue by asking how multi-sided platforms may be deployed in a manner that continues innovative uses of copyright content while protecting the economic freedom of African copyright owners as small businesses. Providing the first pro-Africa approach to the regulation of multi-sided platforms, particularly with reference to music, this book focuses on key aspects of digital commercial activity and highlights the main challenges and opportunities for its regulation. It will be of interest to lawyers, policymakers and students across Nigeria, South Africa, and internationally among the African Union, European Union and beyond. .

The digital economy, broadly defined as the economy operating on the basis of interconnectivity between people and businesses, has gradually spread over the world. Although a global phenomenon, the digital economy plays out in local economic, political, and regulatory contexts. The problems thus created by the digital economy may be approached differently depending on the context. This edited collection brings together leading scholars based in Asia to detail how their respective jurisdictions respond to the competition law problems evolving out of the deployment of the digital economy. This book is timely, because it will show to what extent new competition law regimes or those with a history of lax enforcement can respond to these new developments in the economy. Academics in law and business strategies with an interest in competition law, both in Asia and more broadly, will find the insights in this edited collection invaluable. Further, this volume will be a key resource for scholars, practitioners and students.

This sixth volume in the Oxford Law Colloquium Series adopts the format of a collection of essays by leading academics, each with a response from a practitioner offering an insight into how the different elements of this subject are dealt with in practice. Beginning with a discussion of compensatory damages, the first Part then turns to limitations on compensation, and concludes with a re-evaluation of the SAAMCO principle. The second Part examines restitution and punishment, with particular focus on proprietary restitution for unjust enrichment and the restitution of profits made by a breach of contract. The final Part looks at how the law on agreed remedies might develop, analyses the impact of the Human Rights Act 1993 on litigation between private parties, and concludes with a consideration of commercial remedies in the conflict of laws. This is a highly topical area of law and Commercial Remedies makes a significant contribution to the debate.

Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons explores how privacy impacts knowledge production, community formation, and collaborative governance in diverse contexts, ranging from academia and IoT, to social media and mental health. Using nine new case studies and a meta-analysis of previous knowledge commons literature, the book integrates the Governing Knowledge Commons framework with Helen Nissenbaum's Contextual Integrity framework. The multidisciplinary case studies show that personal information is often a key component of the resources created by knowledge commons. Moreover, even when it is not the focus of the commons, personal information governance may require community participation and boundaries. Taken together, the chapters illustrate the importance of exit and voice in constructing and sustaining knowledge commons through appropriate personal information flows. They also shed light on the shortcomings of current notice-and-consent style regulation of social media platforms. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book presents a comprehensive study on how twenty-three countries have approached the issue of company groups. In addition to detailed profiles of each country's legislation, written by some of the most respected experts in the field, the book also presents a general overview and offers readers an in-depth, up-to-date and highly practical comparative analysis of the company group phenomenon in connection with national legal regimes. As such, the book is a must-read for all those seeking a deeper understanding of how company groups are viewed and regulated around the globe.

Multinational enterprises are becoming a dominant force in international business but surprisingly little has been written on the vital question of the legal issues surrounding their global operations.

Newly updated in paperback, Multinational Enterprises and the Law represents the only complete contemporary and interdisciplinary account of the various techniques used to regulate MNE's at national, regional and international levels. The coverage is comprehensive, authoritative and accessible using numerous case studies from both developed and developing stages to unite theory and current practice.

Split into three major sections the book deals with:

Part I - the conceptual background to MNE regulation.

Part II - a complete examination of the limits of national and regional jurisdiction in regulating MNEs, restrictions on entry and establishment, investment promotion, the impact of the WTO post-entry controls in the fields of tax, company law, antitrust and labour law.

Part III - the contribution of international law and organizations to the regulation of MNEs, including renegotiations and expropriation, ICSID, MIGA and bilateral investment treaties.

The author has skilfully identified the contributions that economics, politics and sociology can add to a full understanding of the legal environment in which the MNE operates.

There can be no doubt that the breadth and depth of the coverage in this book will make it the definitive reference for students, researchers and practitioners in international law, business law, development studies, international politics and international business.

Taking a fresh and modern approach to the subject, this fully revised and restructured textbook provides everything necessary to gain a good understanding of international commercial litigation. Adopting a comparative stance, it provides extensive coverage of US and Commonwealth law, in addition to the core areas of English and EU law. Extracts from key cases and legislative acts are designed to meet the practical requirements of litigators as well as explaining the ideas behind legal provisions. Significant updates include coverage of new case-law from the Court of Justice of the European Union. Of particular importance has been a set of judgments on jurisdiction in tort for pure financial loss, many of which have involved investment loss. New case law from the English courts, including the Supreme Court, and from the Supreme Court of the United States, is also covered.

This book focuses on a central success factor for family businesses: maintaining the decision-making ability over generations while not jeopardizing the business due to family conflict, inefficient governance structures, or lack of identification. The authors identify that this is not as easy as the endeavor to bring two social systems together with contradicting logic (family and business) leads to many dangerous pitfalls. This book presents outcomes of a unique research project in which family managers of eleven of the oldest and largest German family businesses, at least the fourth generation, met for more than three years on a regular basis and presented the essence of their family governance structures to each other and to the authors. It was a joint "learning journey" that admits identifying twelve core questions that these families had been answering to keep up the relationship between family and business successfully over generations. Obviously, there is no "right" answer to these questions. The key to success is rather engaging the families in a process to find out their own answers and make them aware of the "two sides": being a family is different from being a business family.

This book presents a critical reassessment of theories of property rights, in response to conflicts and competition between different groups, and the state. It does so by taking an institutional political perspective to analyse the structures of property rights, with a focus on a series of case studies from Bangladesh. In doing so, the book highlights the importance of property rights for economic growth, why developing countries often fail to design property rights conducive for economic development, and the strategies required for designing an efficient structure of rights. Since property rights falls within the domain of Law and Economics, the book ventures to explain legal issues from an economic perspective, resulting in empirical analysis that comprises both legal and non-legal cases.

This timely book analyses the most significant contemporary developments and trends in property law, including the concept of property rights, the role of property law and property rights in society, and the values they enhance. It examines the effect of property rights on social, economic and cultural development and vice versa, considering the impact of phenomena such as technological innovation, digitalisation and blockchain technology, changes in social and economic organisation and globalisation. Featuring contributions from top international scholars in the field, chapters explain the variety of property rights found in most legal systems and how these develop in relation to social needs and available resources. The book discusses the current transition of property from mainly physical objects to intangible values in the form of, for example, intellectual property rights, and the impacts this is having on the law, democracy and free speech. Other prominent issues tackled by the book include the organisation of registries for property rights, models for managing public property and the influence of new property forms on family and inheritance law. An essential read for scholars and students of property law, including intellectual property, the book will also be of interest to those working in family law, law and technology and commercial law whose research intersects with property rights.

This book gives a detailed account of the current state of the law concerning good faith in contractual performance in Australia, through an empirical study on its reception and development across the various Australian jurisdictions. In Australia, good faith received wide attention after Priestly J introduced in his obiter comments in Renard Construction (ME) v Minister for Works (1992) 26 NSWLR 234.This book focuses on the attitude of the judges to good faith, the definition of good faith, and the possibility of legislating a good faith obligation in Australian contract law. This book also discusses the issues surrounding its development, its meaning, and acceptance at the international level.The empirical legal research adopted in this book will offer a significant contribution in understanding the concept of good faith in Australia from the empirical perspective.

This book presents a comprehensive and systematic study of the principal aspects of the modern law of international commercial transactions. Based on diverse sources, including legislative texts, case law, international conventions, and a variety of soft-law instruments, it highlights key topics such as the international sale of goods, international transport, marine insurance, international finance and payments, electronic commerce, international commercial arbitration, standard trade terms, and international harmonization of trade laws. In focusing on the private law aspects of international trade, the book closely analyzes the relevant statutes, case law and the European Union (EU) and international uniform law instruments like the Rome I Regulation, the UN Convention on the Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), UNCITRAL Model Laws; non-legislative instruments including restatements such as the UNIDROIT Principles on International Commercial Contracts, and rules of business practices codified by the ICC such as the Arbitration Rules, UCP 600 and different versions of the INCOTERMS. The book clearly explains the key concepts and nuances of the subject, offering incisive and vivid analyses of the major issues and developments. It also traces the evolution of the law of international trade and explores the connection between the lex mercatoria and the modern law. Comprehensively examining the issue of international harmonization of trade laws from a variety of perspectives, it provides a detailed account of the work of major players in the field, including UNCITRAL, UNIDROIT, ICC, and the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). Adopting the comparative law method, this book offers a critical analysis of the laws of two key jurisdictions-India and England-in the context of export trade. In order to stimulate discussion on law reform, it explains the similarities and differences not only between laws of the two countries, but also between the laws of India and England on the one hand, and the uniform law instruments on the other. Given its breadth of coverage, this book is a valuable reference resource not only for students in the fields of law, international trade, and commercial law, but also for researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

As the number and size of nonprofit organizations continues to grow, NFPs are coming under ever-increasing government scrutiny. Soon Congress will require that nonprofits comply with rigorous accounting and governance standards very similar to those set forth for for-profits in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

If you work for a nonprofit and are concerned about meeting impending changes to tax and finance standards governing NFPs this book is for you. In simple, straight-forward language, this guide demystifies the often perplexing world of nonprofit governance in the age of Sarbanes-Oxley. Author, Jill Gilbert Welytok, an attorney who heads the Sarbanes-Oxley division of a major Midwest law firm, walks you step-by-step through the process of evaluating your governance structures. She arms you with tips and strategies for adopting uniform standards under current governance and tax laws, while preparing you for any upcoming changes. She shows you how to protect your tax status and reassure donors and volunteers while staying true to your organization's mission. And she fills you in on what you need to know to: Comply with state laws and regulationsGet and keep tax-exempt statusAvoid lawsuits and other legal landminesHandle the mediaAnticipate future trendsMake sense of the Sarbanes-Oxley act

Including sample nonprofit bylaws and a complete audit committee report, "Nonprofit Law & Governance for Dummies, Second Edition" is an indispensable survival tool for 21st century nonprofits.

The aviation industry is being transformed by the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones - commercially, militarily, scientifically and recreationally. National regulations have generally failed to keep pace with the expansion of the fast-growing drone industry. Aviation Law and Drones: Unmanned Aircraft and the Future of Aviation traces the development of aviation laws and regulations, explains how aviation is regulated at an international and national level, considers the interrelationship between rapidly advancing technology and legislative attempts to keep pace, and reviews existing domestic and international drone laws and issues (including safety, security, privacy and airspace issues). Against this background, the book uniquely proposes a rationale for, and key provisions of, guiding principles for the regulation of drones internationally - provisions of which could also be implemented domestically. Finally, the book examines the changing shape of our increasingly busy skies - technology beyond drones and the regulation of that technology. The world is on the edge of major disruption in aviation - drones are just the beginning. Given the almost universal interest in drones, this book will be of interest to readers worldwide, from the academic sector and beyond.