The US Supreme Court's 1937 decision in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, upholding the constitutionality of Washington State's minimum wage law for women, had monumental consequences for all American workers. It also marked a major shift in the Court's response to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal agenda. In Making Minimum Wage, Helen J. Knowles tells the human story behind this historic case. West Coast Hotel v. Parrish pitted a Washington State hotel against a chambermaid, Elsie Parrish, who claimed that she was owed the state's minimum wage. The hotel argued that under the concept of "freedom of contract," the US Constitution allowed it to pay its female workers whatever low wages they were willing to accept. Knowles unpacks the legal complexities of the case while telling the litigants' stories. Drawing on archival and private materials, including the unpublished memoir of Elsie's lawyer, C. B. Conner, Knowles exposes the profound courage and resolve of the former chambermaid. Her book reveals why Elsie-who, in her mid-thirties was already a grandmother-was fired from her job at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, and why she undertook the outsized risk of suing the hotel for back wages. Minimum wage laws are "not an academic question or even a legal one," Elinore Morehouse Herrick, the New York director of the National Labor Relations Board, said in 1936. Rather, they are "a human problem." A pioneering analysis that illuminates the life stories behind West Coast Hotel v. Parrish as well as the case's impact on local, state, and national levels, Making Minimum Wage vividly demonstrates the fundamental truth of Morehouse Herrick's statement.

Most employers know that rewarding their best workers is good business. However, the returnA" on such investment is difficult to measure, and wise employers think long and hard about two of their largest expense items - employee benefits and executive compensation. Today in the United States, under the glare of issues raised by the current financial crisis, company-sponsored benefits programs have become mere shadows of what they once were, and executive compensation has come under intense scrutiny to the point where the Treasury Department monitors it at companies receiving federal assistance. In recognition of the growing importance of employee benefits and executive compensation issues, the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University School of Law dedicated New York University's 59th Annual Conference on Labor to an in-depth examination of these topics. This volume of the proceedings of the 2006 conference contains papers presented at that meeting, all here updated to reflect recent developments. It also includes contributions from other practitioners and academics with extensive knowledge and experience in this specialized field of labor and employment law. Among the topics presented and discussed are the following: - the structure and adequacy of the U.S. system of providing for retirement income; - alternative models of providing retirement benefits, including a government-provided livable pension; - accounting standards as a silent regulatorA" of defined benefit pension plans; - impact and implications of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA); - benefits issues for foreign workers in the United States, both documented and undocumented; - issues for companies that adopt stock acquisition programs as an employee compensation vehicle; - recent healthcare reform proposals at the state level as pilot projects for a national system; - the ERISA preemption scheme and denial of coverage under an ERISA-governed health care plan; and - attorney conflict of interest situations under ERISA. As always, this annual conference captures valuable insights and syntheses of central labor and employment law issues in the United States and will be of great value to practitioners and academics in the field.

Across Europe, market mechanisms are spreading into areas where they did not exist before. In public administration, market governance is displacing other ways of coordinating public services. In social policy, the welfare state is retreating from its historic task of protecting citizens from the discipline of the market. In industrial relations, labor and management are negotiating with an eye to competitiveness, often against new non-union market players. What is marketization, and what are its effects? This book uses employment services in Denmark, Germany, and Great Britain as a window to explore the rise of market mechanisms. Based on more than 100 interviews with funders, managers, front-line workers, and others, the authors discuss the internal workings of these markets and the organizations that provide the services. This book gives readers new tools to analyse market competition and its effects. It provides a new conceptualization of the markets themselves, the dilemmas and tradeoffs that they generate, and the differing services and workplaces that result. It is aimed at students and researchers in the applied fields of social policy, public administration, and employment relations and has important implications for comparative political economy and welfare states.

Bargaining, negotiation and civil penalty sanctions together constitute central techniques used by regulators in securing compliance with the law. This book is a timely exploration of these practices, constructing a principled framework for evaluating their legitimacy and thereby drawing into sharper focus the importance of the constitutional principles in regulatory compliance. Although Australian competition law provides the focal point of the book, its analysis and critique is equally applicable to other competition law regimes and to other areas of business regulation. While there are numerous empirical studies of regulatory enforcement, this book introduces a normative dimension to the debate by seeking to identify whether there are certain principled and ethical limits that inform and circumscribe the limits of legitimate enforcement practice. It is likely to be of interest to scholars in the fields of public law, criminology, economics, and regulation, and may also be of considerable assistance to legal practitioners in providing a principled, legal foundation from which to draw in their dealings with regulators.

This edition of the Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business provides a general examination of issues vital to the world's economic recovery. In the field of company law, practitioners examine changes in Russia's corporate law and the new Ukrainian law governing joint-stock companies. In the area of competition law, lawyers review Serbia and Bulgaria's new laws on the protection of competition and the private enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 in Europe's national courts. Dispute resolution occupies two chapters, one dealing with best practices for drafting arbitration clauses and the other set aside, recognition, and enforcement of private commercial arbitration awards. A further two chapters treat employment and labor matters relating to distribution and commercial representation, indemnity upon termination, and processing personal data in the employment context of Hungary. In the area of financial services, practitioners from five jurisdictions deal with fiduciary duty, the European Commission's proposed Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers, Swiss disclosure rules on significant shareholdings, restructuring and refinancing routes for mortgage-secured debt in Spain, and insurance laws and regulations in Nigeria. Foreign investment is examined by two authors, reporting on 2008 and 2009 developments in investment treaty disputes and foreign investment in Indonesia. Intellectual property issues are reviewed in chapters relating to the use of intellectual property as collateral in secured financing and intellectual property licensing in Canada. Finally, lawyers treaty a variety of other issues, including the tax law of Liechtenstein, European Union-Israel trade in the automobile sector, insolvency risk and creditors' rights in Peru, the modernizing of trust law in Hong Kong and bridging cultural differences in international Transactions.

Franchising has long been an integral part of the globalization of business and an important tool in the spread of investment.
In this special issue of the Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business, practitioners who are specialized in franchising -- its potentials as well as its pitfalls -- provide reports on franchising developments in national systems such as:
- Australia,
- Austria,
- Canada,
- Chile,
- China,
- the Czech Republic,
- Denmark,
- France,
Germany,
- Greece,
- India,
- Indonesia,
- Israel,
- Malaysia,
- Mexico,
- Norway,
- Russia,
- Singapore,
- Spain,
- Thailand, and
- Turkey.

This text provides a comprehensive survey of the law and practice of securitization in the major jurisdictions in which securitizations have been carried out. It reviews the principal assets commonly securitized and the development of the market in each country. Legal aspects of the most important structures are analyzed in detail, involving therefore the establishment of special purpose vehicles, credit enhancement techniques and security issues. The book is also a commentary on specialized issues such as public offerings of asset-backed securities and cross-border considerations. In summary, securitization can be defined broadly as the process of financing assets through the issuance of securities which are "backed" (i.e. secured) by the cash payment streams generated by the assets securitized and by the assets themselves. There are 16 national reports. The book forms a discussion of both market and legal issues. It also allows a quick comparison of different jurisdictions.

This book discusses the socioeconomic effects of Right-to-Work (RTW) laws on state populations. RTW laws forbid requiring union membership even at union-represented worksites. The core of the 22 long-term RTW states was the Confederacy, cultural descendants of rigidly hierarchical agrarian feudal England. RTW laws buttress hierarchy and power imbalance which unions minimize at the worksite and by encouraging higher educational attainment, social mobility, and individual empowerment through group validation. Contrary to claims of RTW proponents, RTW and non-RTW states do not differ significantly in unemployment rates. RTW states have higher poverty rates, lower median household incomes, and lower educational attainment on average and median than non-RTW states. RTW states on average and median have lower life expectancy, higher obesity prevalence, and higher rates of all-cause mortality, early mortality from chronic conditions, child mortality, and risk behaviors than non-RTW states. The higher mortality rates result in startlingly higher annual numbers of years of life lost before age 75. Stroke mortality at age 55-64 in RTW states results in nearly 10,000 years annually lost in excess of what it would be if the mortality rate were that of non-RTW states. A review of respected publications describes the physiological mechanisms and epidemiology of accelerated aging due to socioeconomic stress. Unions challenge hierarchy directly at work-sites and indirectly through encouraging college education, social mobility, and community and political engagement. How startling that feudal hierarchy lives in 21st century America, shaping vast differences between states in macro- and micro-economics, educational attainment, innovation, life expectancy, obesity prevalence, chronic disease mortality, infant and child mortality, risk behaviors, and other public health markers! Readers will gain insight about the coming clash between feudal individualism and adaptive collectivism, and, in the last chapter, on ways to win the clash by "missionary" work for collectivism.

The Changing Face of Corruption in the Asia Pacific: Current Perspectives and Future Challenges is a contemporary analysis of corruption in the Asia-Pacific region. Bringing academicians and practitioners together, contributors to this book discuss the current perspectives of corruption's challenges in both theory and practice, and what the future challenges will be in addressing corruption's proliferation in the region.

Since 1979, China has been in the midst of an on-going process of liberalization of financial services, which has been accelerated under its WTO obligations. Such liberalization increases the vulnerability of China to financial crises, with domestic and international implications. In order to reduce its vulnerability, China is seeking to develop a robust financial system by restructuring its financial regulatory and institutional structure in accordance with international standards. This process requires structural choices to be made in respect of financial services liberalization commitments and international financial standards. These choices will have a significant impact upon the development of China's financial system. The reform of China's financial system raises many challenges. At the international level, there is at present no explicit linkage between the required legal infrastructure that must be in place for the development of a robust financial system and financial liberalization under the WTO. At the domestic level, weaknesses remain, which are likely to be brought to the surface by financial liberalization resulting from WTO accession and implementation. China's challenge is to strike an appropriate balance between a robust financial system and WTO compliance. Measures taken in this connection will also be indicative of potential disputes that may arise with other WTO members, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. In December 2006, China's two protective measures of geographical limitation and client limitation will be eliminated. There will be few market access limitations for foreign investors in banking, except capital requirements. In this context, it is interesting to know how Chinese financial regulators will deal with the liberalization issue arising from the WTO, and this is the focus of this authoritative book. This examination of China's financial reform under the WTO is meaningful for other developing and developed countries, as well as for China. This book addresses the on-going process of financial restructuring and reform in post-WTO China from a legal perspective. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the impact of the WTO on China's financial markets and financial law systems. Chapter 2 discusses reform of banking law and regulation in post-WTO China. Chapter 3 addresses the role of the central bank in China's financial system, focusing on issues of independence and accountability of the People's Banking of China (PBOC), China's central bank. Chapter 4 analyses China's compliance with WTO obligations in the area of banking. Chapter 5 discusses the role of asset management companies (AMCs) in China's on-going banking restructuring and liberalization. Chapter 6 analyses the development of securities markets in China, the challenges being faced and the impact of the WTO. Chapter 7 describes insurance and its development in China, focusing on the role of the WTO in liberalization. A new topic in China, i.e., financial conglomerates, is discussed in chapter 8, building upon the discussions in the previous chapters. Chapter 9 in turn studies the issue of financial institution insolvency and restructuring - as noted in previous chapters, key issues in China. Chapter 10 discusses the double impact of the WTO and one of China's regional trade agreements, CEPA, on China's banking law.

The global crises of the early 21st century have tested the international financial architecture. In seeking to ensure stability, governments have regulated financial and capital markets. This in turn has implicated international investment law, which investors have invoked as a shield against debt restructuring, bail-ins or bail-outs. This book explores whether investment law should protect against such regulatory measures, including where these have the support of multilateral institutions. It considers where the line should be drawn between legitimate regulation and undue interference with investor rights and, equally importantly, who draws it. Across the diverse chapters herein, expert international scholars assess the key challenges facing decision makers, analyze arbitral and treaty practice and evaluate ways towards a balanced system of investment protection in the financial sector. In doing so, they offer a detailed analysis of the interaction between investment protection and financial regulation in fields such as sovereign debt restructuring and bank rescue measures. Combining high-level analysis with a detailed assessment of controversial legal issues, this book will provide guidance for both academics and legal practitioners working in international economic law, international arbitration, investment law, international banking and financial law. Contributors include: A. Asteriti, P. Athanassiou, C.N. Brower, A. De Luca, A. Goetz-Charlier, A. Gourgourinis, R. Hofmann, H. Kupelyants, Y. Li, M. Mendelson, M.W. Muller, M

European competition law has been increasingly subject to two complementary forces: decentralisation and harmonisation. In the course of this process, certain procedural elements have come to the fore as constituting impediments to the enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC in terms of actions for damages. While ECJ case law appears to establish a type of 'minimum' enforcement in this area, the far-reaching analysis presented in this book shows how an 'adequate' or even 'optimal' degree of enforcement may be achieved by effecting a choice between competing procedural solutions. Focusing on rules of civil procedure used by the ordinary courts of England, France, and Germany, the authors show how basic principles - such as protection of the rights of the defence, legal certainty, and proper conduct of the procedure - facilitate the application of the doctrines of effectiveness and non-discrimination to those elements of the national procedure which impede in some manner the effective enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC. Their in-depth analysis ranges over procedural aspects of such elements as rules of evidence, costs, expert testimony, injunctions, burden of proof, limitations, and forms of compensation, ultimately leading them to propose clear modifications of certain rules of national procedure that go a long way toward ensuring adequately effective enforcement. This remarkable book breaks through an impasse in European competition law. It serves to steady the balance which has been sought between the different actors of the procedure in each of the national systems studied. For practitioners and jurists it offers a particularly useful approach to the handling of cases involving European competition law, and also serves as a guide by reason of its clear presentation, its clarification of doctrine, and its analysis of national and European case law.

The obligations of international trade law hinge upon the question of what constitutes 'like products'. Trade disputes will often involve an examination of whether the products in question are in competition with one another. The most common term used for this test is to ask whether they are 'like products' - that is to ask whether products are sufficiently similar for consumers to see them as substitutable - and thus whether they are subject to the rules of the WTO and GATT. This book seeks to develop consistent principles and an effective definition for this central issue of world trade law.

Examining open EDI, an application of electronic commerce, this volume deals with its relationship with law. Electronic commerce applications all allow the transfer of electronic data from one point to another. Open EDI also allows for commercial transactions to take place in a fully-automated and highly-organized trading environment. Open EDI permits "ad hoc" open electronic transactions irrespective of geographical border and jurisdictions among trading partners with no prior trade relationship. By doing this open EDI limits the possibility of using up-front interchange agreements to address legal problems of the interchange. It is therefore necessary to use legal instruments supported by information technology to overcome legal problems. The book advocates the use of possible regulations to address the need of the users to act in such a trading environment uninhibited by basic legal concerns. It concludes that to respond to the challenge of open EDI it is necessary to work towards a new legal framework based on international law and supported by information technology.

Global in scope and written by leading scholars in the field, the Research Handbook on Mergers and Acquisitions is a modern-day survey providing cutting edge analysis of the state of M&A using history, theory, and empirical work, and also providing a theoretical framework for future research and development in the field. Its chapters explore the history of mergers and acquisitions, considering the theory behind the structure of modern transaction documentation. The authors also address other key M&A issues, such as takeover defenses; judges and practitioners' perspectives on litigation; the appraisal remedy and other aspects of Federal and state law, as well as M&A considerations in the structure of start-ups. The book's coverage is novel as well as broad, broaching comparative issues and shareholder activism in addition to more traditional areas. This Research Handbook will be an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, judges and legislators

The Review of the CISG is published once yearly and features articles written by prominent legal scholars in the field of international sale of goods from around the world. In addition to scholarly writings analyzing the various articles of the CISG, the book seeks to compile translations of recent decisions as well as commentaries of notable cases relating to the CISG. The Review of the CISG provides both a forum for legal discussion within the international legal community in the area of international sales law and as an authoritative source of reference for international scholars.

The 2006 edition of the "Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business" examines issues in three major topic categories: Litigation and Dispute Resolution, Investment Vehicles, and Secured Interests in Immovables. Lawyers from Nigeria, the United States, and Ireland review the settlement of investment disputes, the impact of claims on non-United States companies, and claim and dispute resolution under FIDIC. Practitioners from Israel, Panama, Hong Kong, and Belgium treat investment vehicles such as trusts, foundations, and joint ventures and investment visas. Contributors from Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Mexico review the use of security in real property in their respective jurisdictions. Finally, lawyers from Brazil, Canada, the United States, Germany, South Africa, Ukraine, and Romania treat issues ranging from trade mark counterfeiting, registered designs, and telecommunications to criminality in international business transactions, outsourcing, and business immigration.

This book offers an exhaustive analysis of extraterritorial employment standards. Part I addresses the U.S. role in the enforcement of internationally recognized worker rights in the world community. Worker rights include the right of association; the right to organize and bargain collectively; a prohibition on the use of any form of forced or compulsory labor; a minimum age for the employment of children; acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health; and the right to work in an environment free from discrimination. By using economic coercion in the form of preferential trade benefits, investment incentives, and trade sanctions, the United States attempts to encourage foreign governments and employers, both local and transnational, to abandon exploitative working conditions for employment standards recognized by the world community. Part II is an exhaustive review of employment standards for U.S. citizens employed abroad, including equal employment opportunity standards. It also addresses extraterritorial wage and hour regulation and federal statutes establishing worker compensation standards to persons employed at military installations or in areas where the risk of war hazards are prevalent. Part III is a discussion of the policy concerns and implications of extraterritorial employment standards. These standards impact domestic producers, domestic workers and their representative organizations, consumers, exporters and importers, as well as multinational enterprises and their employees. This book is indispensable for managers, legal counsel for employers and employees, and policy makers and labor leaders in any industry having contact with the global economy.

This textbook examines the legal and regulatory approaches to digital assets and related technology taken by United States regulators. As cryptoassets and other blockchain applications mature, and regulatory authorities work hard to keep pace, Daniel Stabile, Kimberly Prior and Andrew Hinkes invite students to consider the legal approaches, challenges and tension points inherent in regulating these new products and systems. The authors explore the attempts to apply securities laws and money transmission regulation, the growth of smart contracts, the taxation of digital assets, and the intersection of digital assets and criminal law. This innovative and unique textbook features: Commentary and analysis by three leading attorneys engaged with the regulation of digital assets and blockchain technology, offering practical, real-world acumen A comprehensive overview of the origins, key features and mechanisms of blockchain technology, as well as a broad intimation of the divisive debates that will shape the future of digital assets, to guarantee a thorough introduction to the topic for students Excerpts of authorities and other materials from key regulators, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trade Commission, and the Internal Revenue Service, to add insight and nuance to classroom discussions. In this, the first textbook of its kind, students of law, business, or technology will find crucial insights into the law and regulation of blockchain and a comprehensive overview of significant public debates on the topic.

Involved with the development of the English Arbitration Act at various stages, the authors of this work have provided a publication of the Act with a detailed, non-English language commentary. Enacted in June 1996, the 1996 English Arbitration Act only came into force on 31 January 1997. Unlike other materials published or prepared before the Act's effective date, this book is current to January 1998 and takes account of the significant, last-minute decision to remove the distinction between international and domestic arbitration in English law. The authors present the material in English, French, German, and Spanish, with each version consistently arranged for easy access. Arbitration experts from the relevant countries prepared the translations under the guidance of experts in the field. The authors have conveniently set out the commentary in footnotes on a section-by-section basis. Through this work the reader should gain an opportunity to study this important and complex legislation in his or her own language with expert guidance.

The Netherlands is one of a handful of countries in which bank enterprise and national financial law give rise to a large number of international financial transactions. It is important then for practitioners in other countries to gain more than a notional understanding of the specific features of Dutch financial law, as well as a clear working knowledge of how Dutch financial law interacts with supranational regulatory and policy regimes affecting financial transactions. Toward this end, this very useful book provides a practical but nevertheless thorough survey of Dutch financial law, with lucid explanations of such topics as the following: A- specific rules applicable to investment institutions; A- specific rules applicable to debt instruments; A- offering securities in both primary and secondary markets; A- set-off and calculation of obligations of market participants (netting); A- structures for custody and book-entry transfer of securities; A- obtaining and terminating listings; A { mandatory bids, competing bids, friendly and unfriendly bids under public offering regulations; A- meaning, jargon and function of derivatives, forwards, futures, options, swaps, etc.; A- securities repurchase and lending transactions; A- covered bond regulations; A- caretaking duties in private and public law; A- structure of legal proceedings of a prospectus liability claim; A- unfair commercial practices rules; A- case law in insider trading and market manipulation; and A- securities litigation in Dutch private, criminal, and administrative law. Written in clear, easy-to-follow English, this book makes Dutch financial law accessible to lawyers, business persons, and others whose work entails financial transactions in the Netherlands. It also serves as an admirable text for students and academics in the field of financial law.

The opening of the European postal market to competition is gaining ground as Member States transpose the 1997 postal directive into their national legislation and private postal companies expand their market shares. Moreover, changing regulatory trends (for example, the ever-lower weight and price limits delimitating the scope of the reserved area) encourage further growth in the continuing liberalization of this important network industry. In this informative symposium, 19 practitioners and academics expert in postal sector dynamics present detailed research findings, analysis, and recommendations. The book is based on a conference held in Brussels in February 2001, under the auspices of the Universities of Liege and Ghent and the Free University of Brussels. It provides an in-depth assessment of the challenges presented not only by the prospect of liberalization but also by the transition (of particular significance during the next few years) from the traditional monopoly system. Among the critical matters discussed are the following: terminal dues for international mail; remail provisions; the UPU and WTO constraints on the European postal market; EU Commission decisions and ECJ case law interpreting the postal directive; the effects of EC Treaty Articles 81 and 82 and the Merger Control Regulation; abuse of market power, especially by incumbent public postal operators; the "essential facilities" doctrine; and funding of universal service obligations. In addition, there are specific country reports from five EU Member States (France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom) and Norway, bearing witness to the diversity of means adopted to implement the postal directive. Business persons and their counsel, regulatory officials, practitioners, and academics interested in the creation of an EU-wide postal market-as well as in the ongoing reliability and improvement of postal service - should find this text valuable.