Beneficial ownership registers were introduced in the European Union (EU) under the 4th and 5th Anti Money Laundering Directive, with the ultimate goal of promoting increased transparency in the financial markets. Nevertheless, public access to the beneficial ownership information of companies and other legal arrangements, such as trusts, raises significant issues in relation to each individual's fundamental right to privacy, and consequently many EU member states are still struggling to strike the right balance between transparency and privacy. As a result, the implementation of beneficial ownership registers has been delayed in many EU member states and different legislative choices have been made in the various jurisdictions. Since beneficial ownership registers do not only apply to entities incorporated or administered in an EU jurisdiction, but may also extend to foreign entities with some business connection to that jurisdiction, it is essential to master these differences. This book, co-published with STEP, the world's leading organisation for private wealth professionals, provides an in-depth analysis of the beneficial ownership registers legislation in a number of EU jurisdictions as well as in the UK, which pioneered it with the creation of its own 'PSC Register'. It also looks at similar initiatives being experienced in some leading international financial centres as well as in the US. It includes coverage of: The functioning of beneficial ownership registers in selected EU jurisdictions; The differences between the beneficial ownership registers for companies and those for trusts, which are maintained in many EU member states; Practical comparisons on the possibility for individual beneficial owners to apply for their personal information to be withheld from public access; The ways of complaint in case such an application is not accepted; and Special cases such as the treatment of an EU company controlled by a trust or a foundation. The first to comprehensively approach this topic, this title will benefit private client advisers (lawyers, notaries, accountants) and family officers whose clients have business interests in the EU. The registration of the details of beneficial owners has become a new variable to be considered in any estate planning or asset protection exercise and more generally in any circumstance where a company or any other legal arrangement is created. It is therefore essential reading for anyone involved in any of these fields.

Bringing together theoretical, empirical and comparative perspectives on the European Social Model (ESM) and transitional labour market policy, this volume contains theoretical accounts of the ESM and a discussion of policy implications for European social and employment policies that derive from research on transitional labour markets. It provides an economic as well as legal assessment of the European Employment Strategy and contains evaluations of new forms of governance both in European and member state policies, including discussions of the potential and limits of soft law instruments. Country studies of labour market reforms in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France assess their contribution to an emerging ESM, while comparative accounts of the ESM examine mobility and security patterns in Europe and beyond and evaluate recent 'flexicurity' policies from a global perspective.

Beyond the Courtroom provides a compilation of articles and chapters by a dispute resolution scholar who has made remarkable contributions over his thirty-year career. Professor Abramson has focused his research and practice on parties trying to resolve their own disputes. This book includes publications that have contributed to launching the then new field of mediation representation with special attention on how attorneys, as gate keepers to mediation, can effectively represent clients. The book also includes his original publications that have contributed to the emerging field of intercultural and international mediation and the already robust and mature field of negotiations.

Electronic Commerce and International Private Law examines the maximization of consumer protection via the consumer's jurisdiction and law. It discusses the proposition that a new connecting factor be used to improve the efficiency of juridical protection for consumers who contract with foreign sellers by electronic means and offers recommendations as to how to amend existing jurisdiction and choice of law rules to provide a basis for the consumer to sue in his own jurisdiction and for the law of the consumer's domicile to apply. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, students and practitioners working in the areas of international private law, electronic commerce law and consumer law.

Utilizing a comparative examination of case-law from England, Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, this volume provides a comprehensive and systematic study of the law of intervening causation (novus actus interveniens) to present an analysis of this particular judicial limitation of liability device. The work provides a structure from which to formulate core general legal principles and identify the various legal tests utilized by the courts.

Introduction to Public Law is a historical and comparative introduction to public law. The book traces back the origins of the res publica to Roman law and analyzes the course of its development, first during the monarchical age in continental Europe and England, and then during the republican age that began at the end of the eighteenth century with the democratic revolutions in the United States and France. For each period and country, the book analyzes the major concepts of public law and their transformations: sovereignty, the state, the statute, the separation of powers, the public interest, and administrative justice.

To a disturbing degree, we are at the mercy of our time and place. While law may provide relief for some of life's troubles, that requires access to justice. Accessibility is the focus of this volume, which expands analysis of access to justice beyond the US and the UK to Asia and other comparative jurisdictions. Chapters characterise access to justice dynamics in these jurisdictions by addressing how access is understood, how it is achieved or not achieved, and how the jurisdiction should improve. The book addresses some issues seldom addressed in analyses of western jurisdictions, such as paid mandatory legal services and mandatory public interest activities, and provides English translations of relevant regulations. The book expands our understanding of access to justice with a comparative perspective, one that allows readers to identify relationships between access and its constitutive environment.

A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealth What is it that transforms a simple object, an idea, or a promise to pay into an asset that creates wealth? Katharina Pistor explains how, behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, capital is created-and why this little-known activity is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else. A powerful new way of thinking about one of the most pernicious problems of our time, The Code of Capital explores the various ways that debt, complex financial products, and other assets are selectively coded to protect and reproduce private wealth. This provocative book paints a troubling portrait of the pervasive global nature of the code, the people who shape it, and the governments that enforce it.

The volume offers both a general overview and selected details of Italian private law and its transition from early 20th century legal tradition to a modern legal system based on constitutional values and geared towards European integration. Among the areas presented are family law, succession, legal persons, businesses and companies, property, contract, and tort. The volume takes into account not only the legislative system, starting from the 1942 Civil Code and highlighting the many and significant changes that have been made in the past six decades, but also the profound influence of case-law and legal scholarship. The authors emphasise the eclectic but systematically solid foundations of Italian private law, which has been able to blend successfully the best of the diverse continental legal traditions and adapt itself to the ever growing pressure of EU legislation. The volume is addressed to legal scholars, practitioners and students who wish to gain first hand knowledge of Italian private law in their research, professional or academic activity.

A novel and incisive investigation of the role of judicial precedents and customs in Russian law, this book examines the trends in the development of judge-made law in Russian civil law since the demise of the Soviet Union.

Exploring the interrelated propositions that a certain creative element is intrinsic to the judicial function in modern legal systems, which are normally shaped by both legislators and judges and that the Russian legal system is not an exception to this rule, the author argues that the rejection or acceptance of judge-made law can no longer be sufficient grounds for distinguishing between common law and civil law systems for the purposes of comparative analysis.

Divided into six chapters, it covers:

• the principles applied by judges when interpreting legal acts; analyzing a number of academic writings on this subject
• the boundaries of the realm of judge-made law and the problem of 'hard cases' and the factors, which make them 'hard'
• a taxonomy of forms in which Russian courts effectuate their law-creation functions
• current policies of courts in legal and socio-political matters
• joint-stock societies and arbitrazh courts.

Estimating the degree of creativity within different branches of the Russian judiciary and explaining the difference in the approaches of various courts as well as setting out proposals as to how the discrepancies in judicial practice can be avoided, Judicial Law-Making in Post-Soviet Russia is invaluable reading for all students of international law, comparative law, legal skills, method and systems and jurisprudence and philosophy of law.

Italian Private Law provides an excellent overview and analysis of Italian private law and its transition from the early twentieth century legal tradition to a system based on constitutional values, geared towards European integration. Exploring the eclectic yet systematically solid foundations of Italian private law, which has adapted itself to the ever growing pressure of EU legislation, Alpa and Zenovich look at the legislative system as well as the profound influence of case-law and legal scholarship. It examines: family law succession legal persons businesses and companies property law contract law tort law. This volume is a key resource for legal scholars, practitioners and students who want to gain a deeper knowledge of Italian private law in their research, professional or academic activity.

What does the Belt and Road Initiative mean for the existing multilateral organisations? What can it represent for the future of the European Union in the long run? What is the role of hard and soft law in the functioning of the Initiative? What does it represent from a legal theory perspective? This book aspires to contribute to the international debate by gathering scholars with different backgrounds (legal theorists, public international lawyers, comparative lawyers) in a way that they can offer their inputs and observations concerning the Belt and Road Initiative.

Scholars have produced a wide variety of theoretical work on contract law. This is the first book to compile it, to present it coherently, to evaluate it, and to supply numerous references to additional sources. The author also offers his own practical perspective that emphasizes contract law's richness and complexity and questions the utility of abstract unitary theories. The author argues that, notwithstanding contract law's complexity, it successfully facilitates the formation and enforcement of private arrangements and ensures a degree of fairness in the process of exchange. Each chapter presents a pair of largely contrasting theories to clarify the central issue of contract law and theory, to set forth the range of views, and to help identify a practical middle ground. Among the contract theories discussed and analyzed are promise, contextual, feminist, formal, mainstream, critical, economic, empirical, and relational. The book should interest legal theorists, practising lawyers, law students, and general readers who want to learn more about contract law and theory.

This book presents, analyses and evaluates the Principles of Latin American Contract Law (PLACL), a recent set of provisions aiming at the harmonisation of contract law at a regional level. As such, the PLACL are the most recent exponent of the many proposals for transnational sets of 'principles of contract law' that were drafted or published over the past 20 years, either at the global or the regional level. These include the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, the Principles of European Contract Law, the (European) Draft Common Frame of Reference and the Principles of Asian Contract Law. The PLACL are the product of a working group comprising legal academics from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. The 111 articles of the instrument deal with problems of general contract law, such as formation, interpretation and performance of contracts, as well as remedies for breach. The book aims to introduce the PLACL to an international audience by putting them in their historical and comparative context, including other transnational harmonisation measures and initiatives. The contributions are authored by drafters of the PLACL and contract law experts from Europe and Latin America.

This book brings together leading counterterrorism experts, from academia and practice, to form an interdisciplinary assessment of the terrorist threat facing the United Kingdom and the European Union, focusing on how terrorists and terrorist organisations communicate in the digital age. Perspectives drawn from criminological, legalistic, and political sciences, allow the book to highlight the problems faced by the state and law enforcement agencies in monitoring, accessing, and gathering intelligence from the terrorist use of electronic communications, and how such powers are used proportionately and balanced with human rights law. The book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of terrorism and security, policing and human rights. With contributions from the fields of both academia and practice, it will also be of interest to professionals and practitioners working in the areas of criminal law, human rights and terrorism.

Due to rapid developments in the communication sector, the right to privacy faces new challenges. The increasing digitization and internationalization of communication processes have raised a number of issues, and lead to conflicts wherever national legal systems and moral concepts collide. Particularly in the areas of data protection and liability of online service providers, universal approaches are required. This title presents positions of specialists in Europe, Australia, the US and Canada which contribute to the international dialogue and thereby offer a starting point for a sustainable policy for the protection of privacy rights

At a time when financial crime routinely crosses international boundaries, this book provides a novel understanding of its spread and criminalisation. It traces the international convergence of financial crime regulation with a uniquely comparative approach that examines key institutional and state actors including the European Union, the International Organization of Securities Commissions, as well as the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Italy and Germany, all countries that harbour some of the most influential stock exchanges in the Western world. The book describes and documents the phenomenon of internationalisation of securities frauds - such as insider trading and market manipulation - and the laws criminalising those acts, most notably those responding to recent dramatic transformations in securities markets, high frequency trading, and benchmark manipulation. At the European level, it shows the progressive uniformisation of laws culminating in the 2014 European Union Market Abuse Regulation. The book argues that criminal prohibitions against internationalised market abuse must be understood as an economic and legal imperative to protect financial markets against activities that imperil its integrity, compromising the confidence of investors and thus affecting the economy as a whole. The book is supported by an extensive review of the most significant scholarship in each country.

The value of mediation has been widely acknowledged worldwide, as shown by the number of jurisdictions in which the courts enforce obligations on parties to negotiate and adopt mediation to settle construction disputes. This book examines the expansion and development of court-connected construction mediation provisions across a number of jurisdictions, including the England and Wales, the USA, South Africa and Hong Kong. It includes contributions from academics and professionals in six different countries to produce a truly international comparative study, which is of high importance to construction managers as well as legal professionals.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1998, this volume contains essays from leading thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic on the relationship between law and science. Science plays an ever-increasing part in the development of legislation and the adjudication of cases. Its limitations and its value are explored in these essays which discuss issues of methodology and of evidence. Amongst areas covered are silicone breast implants, the rape trauma syndrome, the environment, inventions and Bayesianism.

For a long time it has been assumed that the search for profits was inseparable from the carrying on of an economic activity, which could not be imagined absent the profit-maximizing motive. Nowadays, the role of nonprofit organizations as economic actors, operating in a competitive market, is well recognized. Therefore, these organizations are no longer a priori excluded from the application of competition law. The current United States, European and German rules of competition, however, do not contain specific provisions for nonprofit market actors, which are treated like other profit-maximizing undertakings, regardless of their social goals and nonprofit status. In the attempt of filling this gap, this study focuses on nonprofits' infra-sector competition. Though a comparative cross-country analysis, the study discusses the legal and economic implications of the enforcement of competition law against nonprofit organizations, and suggests some possible legal normative criteria which could facilitate the future applicability of these norms to not-for-profit entities.

How should constitutional design respond to the opportunities and challenges raised by ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural differences, and do so in ways that promote democracy, social justice, peace and stability? This is one of the most difficult questions facing societies in the world today.
There are two schools of thought on how to answer this question. Under the heading of "accommodation," some have argued for the need to recognize, institutionalize and empower differences. There are a range of constitutional instruments available to achieve this goal, such as multinational federalism and administrative decentralization, legal pluralism (e.g. religious personal law), other forms of non-territorial minority rights (e.g. minority language and religious education rights), consociationalism, affirmative action, legislative quotas, etc. But others have countered that such practices may entrench, perpetuate and exacerbate the very divisions they are designed to manage. They propose a range of alternative strategies that fall under the rubric of "integration" that will blur, transcend and cross-cut differences. Such strategies include bills of rights enshrining universal human rights enforced by judicial review, policies of disestablishment (religious and ethnocultural), federalism and electoral systems designed specifically to include members of different groups within the same political unit and to disperse members of the same group across different units, are some examples.
In this volume, leading scholars of constitutional law, comparative politics and political theory address the debate at a conceptual level, as well as through numerous country case-studies, through an interdisciplinary lens, but with a legal and institutional focus.

Comparative Concepts of Criminal Law is unique in the sense that it introduces the reader to the fundamental concepts and rules of substantive criminal law in a comparative way and not just to the criminal law system of one specific jurisdiction. Compared with other fields of law, like contract and property law, comparative research into the so-called general part of criminal law is quite a recent phenomenon within academia. The increasing 'Europeanisation' of criminal law and policy makes such a comparative approach even more necessary.This handbook therefore fills a legal educational gap by exploring basic concepts of substantive criminal law in three major European legal systems: the common law system of England and Wales and the civil law systems of Germany and the Netherlands. Each chapter focuses on a specific concept or doctrine that is necessary to determine criminal liability (e.g. actus reus, mens rea, defences, inchoate offences). Throughout the book the authors also highlight and discuss some recent legislative and judicial developments that broaden the scope of criminal liability in our modern culture of control.This book is not only invaluable for students, but also for legal practitioners who want to broaden their knowledge of criminal law.