Outer space is in constant use. Most obviously, billions of "packets" of information travel through it every day, for the infinitely various purposes of countless people and organizations. Space platforms increasingly provide important research data for businesses, institutions, and governments. Taxation issues are inevitable. In fact, tax planners have for several years been engaged in designing tax incentives to enhance the development of space commerce. A significant focus of this book is an in-depth evaluation of the current US discussion of tax rules designed to stimulate space commerce in 2001. The debate is placed squarely in its complete context of historic developments and constraints, prevailing tax law (in this case the US internal revenue code), and the body of international and national space law that began with the 1967 Space Treaty. Comparative analysis is provided by examination of corresponding schemes evolving in Canada, Japan, Australia, and France. Specific events, developments, issues, and probabilities dealt with in "The Taxation of Space Commerce" include the following: the economic significance of the Challenger launch in 1986; the value of F.J. Turner's classic "frontier" thesis for understanding the "new frontier" of space; the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 (US); the role of the US internal revenue code's foreign tax credit; the 1979 Moon Treaty; remote-sensing and nuclear power; the 1998 Inter-Governmental Space Station Agreement; case law, especially Smith v. United States; multinational vs. unilateral taxation schemes; benefits of space commerce for society as a whole; and competitiveness and economic efficiency. As a major contribution to the literature of space law and tax law, this text aims to fill an important need. Beyond that, it is a work which should be of value not only for taxation specialists and communications industry executives and their counsel, but for any enterprise with an eye to the not-too-distant future.

Is harmonisation of European securities law a good idea? According to this original analysis, the answer is a qualified yes. If it can be done without undermining the various systems that now govern the custody and transfer of securities in national European jurisdictions, harmonisation will be well received. The author first shows that such an acceptable outcome is indeed possible, and then offers a detailed analysis of the form it might take. Along the way he compares the current infrastructure of securities law in three European countries (Belgium, France, and the Netherlands) with generally accepted standards of modern securities custody and transfer practice, as well as with the harmonisation inherent in the United States Universal Commercial Code.
Among the elements of securities law discussed in this comparative context are the following:
- eligible categories of securities;
- accountholder-intermediary relationship;
- intermediary insolvency;
- shortfalls;
- moment of transfer;
- enforcement of securities rights; and
- conflict of laws.
In approaching the actual form of a European securities instrument, the author considers important relevant initiatives taken by various groups, such as Unidroit, the Hague Convention on Private International Law, and some industry sectors.
As an in-depth contribution to this important aspect of the ongoing debate about the harmonisation of European private law, and as an assessment of the possible impact of harmonisation measures by means of a coherence account, this book will be especially valuable to European policymakers and securities regulatory officials. It will also interest practitioners and academics insuch diverse fields as commercial law, European law, insolvency law, contract law, and property law

This book focuses on the impact of technology on taxation and deals with the broad effect of technology on diverse taxation systems. It addresses the highly relevant eTax issue and argues that while VAT may not be the ultimate solution with regard to taxing electronic commerce, it can be demonstrated to be the most effective solution to date. The book analyzes the application and the effectiveness of traditional income tax principles in contradistinction to VAT principles. Taking into account rapidly ameliorating technology, the book next assesses the compatibility between electronic commerce and diverse systems of taxation. Using case studies of Amazon.com and Second Life as well as additional practical examples, the book demonstrates the effectiveness of VAT in respect of electronic commerce and ameliorating technology in the incalculable and borderless realm of cyberspace.

Contains 13 national reports and the general report on Money Laundering and Banking Secrecy. The reports were written for the XIVth Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law which was held in 1994 in Athens, Greece. As narcotics trafficking exploded in the 1980s, it was realized that money laundering had become a threat to the entire integrity of the financial system. The international trend to regard money laundering as a serious threat to the stability of democracy and the rule of law found expression in the adoption of the 1988 United Nations Drugs Convention. Gradually, the international community diverged from its traditional, narrow approach whereby only the laundering of drug proceeds was considered a threat. In order to combat money laundering efficiently, it soon became clear that criminal law was not sufficient and that it was necessary for banks and other financial institutions to co-operate with law enforcement agencies. The banking community is now obliged to report suspicious transactions, which they often regard as going beyond their role as bankers. The issue of bank secrecy has played an important role in the discussion between law enforcement agencies and the banking community.

The authors of this work are tax specialists representing both high-tax and low-tax jurisdictions. They address tax issues that impact business enterprises as well as individuals, presenting a sampling of issues, each addressed by a commentator whose practice deals directly with such matters on a regular basis. Countries covered are: Austria, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Italy, Liechtenstein, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles, and the USA. The reader will find a range of useful information, not only on the complexity of international taxation, but also its potential for the resolution of conflicts and the mitigation of unfair tax burdens through amortization and international co-operation.

The property rights "movement," a coalition of mineral industry actors, anti-government propagandists, and local economic interests, is best viewed as a backlash aimed at regulations associated with environmental protection and public lands conservation policy. Using a combination of interviews and archival research, Olivetti and Worsham examine the interplay between attempts to set the property rights agenda in Congress, the Courts, and at the state level. They find that having failed to take control of the congressional agenda, the movement engages in a vertical shift, focusing its efforts on the states and through state level challenges, the federal courts.

This book examines a key aspect of the post-financial crisis reform package in the EU and UK-the ratcheting up of internal control in banks and financial institutions. The legal framework for internal controls is an important part of prudential regulation, and internal control also constitutes a form of internal gate-keeping for financial firms so that compliance with laws and regulations can be secured. This book argues that the legal framework for internal control, which is a form of meta-regulation, is susceptible to weaknesses, and such weaknesses are critically examined by adopting an interdisciplinary approach. The book discusses whether post-crisis reforms adequately address the weaknesses in regulating internal control and proposes an alternative strategy to enhance the 'governance' effectiveness of internal control.

Risk taking in business contributes towards innovation. Yet excessive risk taking is associated with corporate failure. Many authors have analysed the relationship between personal liability rules of managers and excessive risk taking. In this context, previous researchers have often argued that insurance against personal liability of the manager (D&O insurance) would weaken the manager's incentive to take care.However, little is known about the workings and effects of D&O insurance. This book analyses how D&O insurance should work ideally and how it currently works in the USA, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.It illustrates how D&O insurance threatens but also benefits society and the economy. In fact, a properly functioning D&O insurance system can more elegantly incentivize adequate risk taking than for example, direct regulation of managerial activity (e.g. disqualification) or the adoption of harsher liability rules.This book provides an overview of the implications of D&O insurance, in particular to:- policy makers who can take concrete reform proposals from this book;- investors who can increase their returns by using the information on corporate D&O insurance policies;- creditors who can better estimate their debtor's default risk by understanding the debtor's D&O insurance policy; and- finally, prospective insurers who can learn in depth about the D&O market, the policy design and the D&O risk.

Prof. Dr. H. C. Klaus Vogel turned 70 in December 2000. For his students, colleagues and friends all around the world he has been not only a teacher and academic, but also a researcher and mentor, and this occasion provided the opportunity to honour him with a Festschrift. This celebratory volume, with contributions in German and in English, is published under the title Staaten und Steuern (States and Taxes) by C.F. Muller Verlag in Heidelberg. With the permission of the publisher, the present volume contains the English language contributions as a separate publication. The following articles are included.

This book opens up the secret world of tax havens and offshore finance centres (OFCs), a vast offshore business valued at over one trillion US dollars. It is a timely and original analysis of the role of OFCs in the emerging global economy. The book discusses who uses OFCs, how OFCs work and what drives their development. Extensive use of case study material from Jersey illustrates the growth of a successful OFC and its impact upon a small island.

This work aims to analyse substantive and conflict of laws rules regarding intermediated securities in a comparative way. For this purpose, it examines major jurisdictions' rules for intermediated securities and the intermediated securities holding systems, such as the rules of the German, US, Korean, Japanese and Swiss systems, as well as the relevant EU regimes and initiatives. Above all, it analyses the two international instruments related to intermediated securities, i.e. the Geneva Securities Convention and the Hague Securities Convention. Through a functional comparative approach based upon legal traditions of the various jurisdictions, this book gives readers theoretical and practical information on intermediated securities and their national and international aspects.

Bank failures, crises, global banking, megamergers, changes in technology--the effect of these world events is to weaken existing methods of regulating bank safety and soundness, and even to make some methods ineffective. Federal regulators are evaluating new ways to solve them. Dr. Gup and his panel of academics and regulatory professionals explore these problems and the difficulties in implementing solutions. They point out that global banking, megamergers, and changes in technology are drastically altering the way financial services are delivered. They also argue that existing methods of bank regulation, formulated in the United States and elsewhere as early as the 19th century, are not able to cope with these changes. The search now underway for new methods that are global in scope. Inevitably, they will involve cross-border supervision and international cooperation.

Covering a wide range of topics, from the rationale of banking regulation to optimal banking regulation in the new world environments, this book examines the innovative tools needed to cope with these problems. Greater reliance on market discipline; the use of internal controls based on statistical models, such as Value-at-Risk; and subordinated debt are discussed. This timely, probing analysis of one of the hottest topics in bank regulation today, is an important resource for professionals and their academic colleagues in the fields of banking, finance, investment, and world trade.

In a world of fading borders, the Internet has become a regular method of buying and selling. However, technological and legal means of guaranteeing secure electronic transactions lag behind the increasing flexibility required by a flourishing "virtual" economy. Furthermore, as virtual money circulates it is susceptible to interception, processing and channeling by any number of corporate interests and public authorities. The questions arise: who is going to control what and why? There are, as yet, no firm answers. This book sets the stage and takes the necessary first steps towards developing a reliable legal regime for virtual money. Its purpose is: to analyze the legal issues raised by internet payment systems, and to explain clearly the solutions already adopted; and to discuss policy issues, with available hypotheses, raised by the convergence of financial services and information technology, and by the advent of virtual money. The authors provide a rigorous assessment of the appropriateness of the relevant existing legal instruments that regulate Internet payment systems, and focus in particular upon the rapidly increasing use of "electronic cash" - on smart cards or in the form of dematerialized electronic tokens - which behaves like cash, in that it can circulate between parties without the intermediation of a financial institution. The text aims to help lawyers, policymakers and business people successfully negotiate the radical transformation under way in all sectors of business and industry.

There are already many papers and books on the causes and course of the current financial crisis, but this is the first and, for the moment, only such book to focus on the regulatory response to it. There are two main attributes that a bank needs to remain in business during a period of turmoil, liquidity to enable it to pay its debts when due, and capital, to absorb losses. Both have been insufficient. Charles Goodhart describes what went wrong and what needs to be done, alongside discussions of deposit insurance, credit rating agencies, prompt corrective action, etc. Charles Goodhart is the senior British economist specialising in financial stability issues. As the turmoil began, continued and exploded into crisis, he has kept up a series of commentaries, all since September 2007. These have been brought together, plus some new and additional material, to provide the reader with an overview of what went wrong in the regulatory framework for the financial system, and what now needs to be done to put that right. This will be required reading for financial regulators, practitioners in banking and finance, academics and students of finance, and those just wanting to know what went wrong and what to do now.

The most ambitious round of multilateral trade negotiations since the formation of the GATT was formally launched in Punta del Este, Uruguay in 1986. With more than 100 nations participating in the "Uruguay Round" negotiations, complex economic problems and difficult political realities made reaching international accord on major trading issues a long and arduous process. The three-volume set presents a history of these negotiations, portraying how participating nations reached their current positions on the proposed major changes in trade in agriculture and textiles, adoption of rules for trade in services, review of existing trade regulations, increased protection of intellectual property rights and the liberalization of the market for many important products. The set contains information which should be useful for all involved in international trade. Legal practitioners, business executives, academics and government officials seeking to understand the position of the important players and grasp the implications of the final agreement should find this factually-objective and politically-neutral account of the negotiations a useful resource. This is volume 1 of the set. The complete set is also available, as are individual chapters, allowing for the purchase of only that information in which a customer has a specific interest.

This timely book brings clarity to the debate on the new legal phenomenon of environmental border tax adjustments. It will help form a better understanding of the role and limits these taxes have on environmental policies in combating global environmental challenges, such as climate change. The book is structured around three main topics: the rationale, the tax design and the legal framework of environmental border tax adjustments. This three-fold analysis gives an overview of the legal issues that should be considered before the adoption of environmental border taxes, including carbon tax adjustments. Alice Pirlot's critical approach to the arguments surrounding traditional and environmental border tax adjustments allows for detailed legal analysis going beyond the question of their compatibility with WTO law, while also reviewing the economic argument. This book will prove to be essential reading for legal scholars and professionals alike, as well as benefitting environmental NGOs, stakeholders in energy-intensive industries and policymakers looking for in-depth insight into environmental border tax adjustments.

The trend towards internationalization, especially in the trade and finance sectors, brings with it an urgent need to know about financial transactions and how they affect currencies. Rapid technological developments are having profound effects on financial transactions, the law and the commercial transactions sustained by that law. The progress in the creation of a single currency for use within the European Community have engendered major controversies over acceptable forms of financial transactions. This work presents the national reports and the general report of the panel on financial transactions which convened at the Athens Conference on Comparative Law, 1994. It reviews the interrelationship between modern techniques for financial transactions and currencies, and the general report ties them all together, as well as distinguishing some common themes in dealing with modern financial transactions.

Transfer Pricing and Valuation in Corporate Taxation analyzes the disparities between both federal statutes and regulations, and r- ulations and administrative practice, in a highly controversial area of corporate tax policy: intra-company transfer pricing for tax p- poses. It addresses issues that often mean millions of dollars to in- vidual corporations, and a significant fraction of the federal gove- ment's revenue base. These disparities between law, regulations, and administrative practice are concerning on a number of grounds. First, they - pose considerable economic costs by inducing corporations to engage in a variety of "rent-seeking" activities designed to reduce their - pected tax liabilities, and by requiring the IRS to devote still more to enforcement efforts that are very often futile. Second, they are in- ; herently undemocratic. Administrative practice is currently ad hoc by relying on dispute resolution procedures that can and do yield very different settlements on disputed tax issues from one case to another, the IRS often ends up treating similarly situated cor- rations very differently. Moreover, to the extent that the disp- ity between statute and implementation reflects the IRS's failure to carry out Congress' will, the laws passed by duly elected officials are effectively being superseded by administrative procedure, developed incrementally by individuals who are not answerable to an electorate.

This work conducts a critical examination of Chinese foreign banking law in the context of the international convergence of supervisory standards and practices. If China is to develop a modern and viable banking sector, it needs to put in place a suitable legal infrastructure which is consistent with emerging international supervisory standards, WTO requirements and aspirations for financial sector liberalization. The author argues that the current foreign banking laws are fundamentally out of line with international standards and practices in a number of respects and that legislators and supervisors do not at present appreciate or cultivate commonly accepted supervisory values. The author therefore proposes a set of reforms that would at the same time create a legal environment for competitive equality between foreign banks and protect the safety and soundness of the Chinese banking system. The issues considered include the licensing process for the entry of foreign banks into the Chinese market, the ongoing regulation of foreign banks and foreign bank crisis management or bank failure resolution. The author offers a proposed framework of Chinese foreign banking law which should be of great benefit to existing and prospective foreign banks in China.

Despite fears that regulators around the world would act to curtail securitisation severely in the aftermath of the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat, the securitisation industry has witnessed what can only be described as relentless innovation. Securisation remains one of the most important means for financial institutions to diversify their funding, transfer credit risk and manage solvency requirements. This volume, the second in a series focusing on the latest innovations in the global securitisation industry, provides advisers with detailed guidance on key structural and legal issues of innovative securitisations, as well as describing the most recent developments in the accounting and risk-capital treatment of securitisation transactions. The contributors represent a wide range of expert participants in the design, execution, and regulation of securitisation transactions. Among the critical features of contemporary securitisation covered are the following: project finance CLOs; securitisation of equity risk; securitisation of commodity risk through commodity trigger swaps; the convergence of structured credit and securitisation markets; innovation in RMBS: negative equity transactions; innovation in CMBS: A/B structure; new markets in Europe, Japan, and Islamic countries; catastrophe risk securitisation; effect of recent US bankruptcy legislation on synthetics; microfinance loan securitisation in emerging markets; public sector securitisation; securitisable intellectual property; application of accounting standards in a rapidly changing environment, and updated analysis of Basel II. The practical perspective of the contributions, combined with the extensive use of case studies of key transactions, should make this volume an invaluable resource for lawyers as well as legal and business academics interested in the very latest developments in the global securitisation markets.

The Nordic tax systems have recently undergone dramatic changes. Tax bases have been broadened, marginal tax rates have been cut, and the Nordic countries have abandoned the traditional income tax in favour of a 'dual' income tax combining progressive taxation of labour income with a low flat tax rate on capital income. Nordic governments have also experimented with new innovative methods of taxing business income. This book evaluates the Nordic tax reforms in the light of recent advances in the theory of taxation.

This guide contains a detailed description of the rules in force, referring to case law, prepatory texts, commentaries and memoranda. The book is based on the Community Customs Code, which contains 253 Articles, accompanied by an implementing code of more than 900 Articles, 100 Annexes, and a separate implementing Regulation on relief from import or export duties. It presents an integrated discussion of the Articles of the Code and the implementing provisions being discussed under the main Article of the Code to which they pertain.

The globalization of the securities markets, rapid technological advancement, the perpetration of widespread cross-border fraud and the proliferation of emerging capital markets have made international financial law an increasingly important area of regulation, practice and research. Its significance will continue to grow in the 21st century, making the advent of a book focusing on developments in international securities law extremely timely. Key topics covered in this book include disclosure requirements, insider trading regulation, global offerings, transnational regulatory co-operation, the role of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), memoranda of understanding and emerging capital markets. Discussion of these issues is supported by examination of the law and policy in numerous countries, including developed and emerging capital markets. The author makes detailed analysis of applicable legal principles with regard to a wide range of topics, discusses proposed standards for law reform and makes recommendations to enhance international cooperation.