English contract law provides the invisible framework that underpins and enables much contracting activity in society, yet the role of the law in policing many of our contracts now approaches vanishing point. The methods by which contracts come into existence, and notionally create binding obligations, have transformed over the past forty years. Consumers now enter into contracts through remote and automated processes on standard terms over which they have little control. This book explores the substantive weakening of the institution of contract law in a society heavily dependent on contracts. It considers significant areas of contracting activity that affect many people, but that escape serious and sustained legal scrutiny. An accessibly written and succinct account of contract law's past, present and future, it assesses the implications of a diminished contract law, and the possibilities, if any, for its revival.

The book explores how the influence by the corporate sector in the economic interactions globally leads to the international governance framework pertaining to CSR, that is primarily based on soft law attributes. Such international soft law regime uniquely influences the way the legal regime around CSR has shaped up in India. Through innovative methodology, the analysis of regulatory space and instruments and the structural framework construe the relationship between state and corporate sectors. It is necessary to investigate the two-fold relationship of state and corporate actors. The book takes up a regulatory, institutional and socio-political investigations through studying the case of CSR in India in the backdrop of the transformations taking place in national arena, its international inspirations and resulting regulatory model that evolve. How the existing regulatory space is affected? What are the implications on the regulatory instruments? The pursuit of the answers would also involve investigation of questions as to how the state-corporate relationship constructed, construed and conducted post state's ratification of CSR. What are the reasons of such changes? What implications do the role of politics and corporate strategies have on the renewed interest in CSR? The book deals with these aforementioned aspects. This scholarly work synthesizes political, economic and legal aspects of the role of the state and corporate sector with narrowly defined focus of CSR which has the ability to provide a comprehensive broad-brushed account of the larger framework.

This comprehensive and popular textbook aims to bridge the gap between theoretical study and practical application. It covers the essentials of construction contracts, including how the law has developed, the reasoning behind key clauses and how contract law is applied in practice, and it helps to make the transition from student to practitioner manageable. This text is intended for all undergraduates studying a construction contract law or a contract administration module or unit. It is ideal for postgraduate degrees in quantity surveying and building surveying, construction project management, and construction management. Civil engineers and students of architecture and architectural technology will find it provides a comprehensive guide to the law in the construction context. It is also very comprehensive in scope and provides sufficient materials to bridge the gap between the student and professional texts.

This book analyses different strategies and their results in implementing financial regulation in terms of rule-making, public enforcement and private enforcement. The analysis is based on a comparative study of conduct of business regulation on mis-selling of financial instruments in the UK and South Korea. It extends into liquidity regulation in the banking sector and credit rating agency regulation. The book concludes that in rule-making, purposive rules are more effective for achieving regulatory goals with minimal undesirable results, but a rule-making system with purposive rules can only work on a foundation of trust among rule-makers, enforcers and the regulates, that with respect to public enforcement, the enforcement strategies should combine the compliance-oriented and deterrence-oriented approaches and be continuously adjusted based on close monitoring of the regulatory outcomes and that in private enforcement, regulation should be instituted as the minimum requirement in private law.

"This book is a classic... its style and content remain invaluable." Entertainment Law Review This is the new edition of a unique book about intellectual property. It is for those new to the subject, both law students and others such as business people needing some idea of the subject. It provides an outline of the basic legal principles, educating the reader as to the shape of the law. Critically, it also gives an insight into how the system actually works. You cannot understand chess by merely learning the rules - you also have to know how the game is played: so too with intellectual property. The authors deliberately avoid technicalities: keeping things simple, yet direct. There are no footnotes to distract. Although cases are, inevitably, referred to, they are explained in a pithy, accessible manner. All major areas of IP - patents, trade marks, copyright and designs - are covered, along with briefer treatment of other rights and subjects such as breach of confidence, plant varieties and databases. A novice reader should come away both with a clear outline of IP law and a feeling for how it works. Students will be able to put their more detailed study into perspective. Users will be able to understand better how IP affects them and their businesses.

This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers from the 14th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), which was held in Singapore on 28-31 July 2019, as well as papers presented during the 1st WCEAMOnline event which focused on the ramifications of Covid-19 on infrastructure systems. This book covers a wide range of topics in engineering asset management, including: asset management services provisioning; servitization; decision-making; asset management systems; industrial Internet of things; and vulnerability and resilience of infrastructure systems. The breadth and depth of these state-of-the-art, comprehensive proceedings make them an excellent resource for asset management practitioners, researchers and academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This book examines the relationship between the EU investor protection regulations enshrined in MiFID and MiFID II and national contract and torts law. It describes how the effect of the conduct of business rules as implemented in national financial supervision legislation in private law extends to the issue of enforcement, and critically assesses this interaction from the perspective of EU law. In particular, the conclusions identified in the book will deepen readers' understanding of the interplay between the conduct of business rules and private law norms governing a firm's liability to pay damages, such as duty of care, attributability of damage, causation, contributory negligence and limitation. In turn, the book identifies the subordination and the complementarity model to conceptualise the interaction between the conduct of business rules and private law norms. Moreover, the book challenges the view that civil courts are - or should be - forced to give private law effects to violation of the MiFID and MiFID II conduct of business rules in line with the subordination model. Instead, the complementarity model is advanced as the preferred approach to this interaction in view of what MiFID and MiFID II require from Member States in terms of their implementation, as well as the desirability of each model. This model presupposes that courts should consider the conduct of business rules when adjudicating individual disputes, while preserving the autonomy of private law norms governing liability of investment firms towards clients. Based on analysis of case law of courts in Germany, the Netherlands and England & Wales, as well as scholarly literature, the book also compares the available causes of action, the conditions of liability and the obstacles investors face when claiming damages, as well as how and the extent to which investors can benefit from the conduct of business rules in clearing these obstacles. In so doing, under the approach adopted by national courts to the interplay between the conduct of business rules of EU origin and private law, the book shows how investors can benefit from the influence of these rules on private law norms. In closing, it demonstrates a hybridisation of private law remedies resulting from the accommodation of the conduct of business rules into the private law discourse according to the complementarity model, illustrating how judicial enforcement through private law means may contribute to investor protection.

Local governments can play an important role in providing public services and supporting economic development. In Mongolia, the legal, institutional, and fiscal environment in which local governments operate, provides several constraints and opportunities that impact on that role. In this publication, we assess both the formal features of Mongolia's system of decentralized governance and the way that system works in practice. We also provide practical suggestions for improvements to the current system.

This edited volume explores the old and new "collective dimensions" of employment relations. It examines specific challenges stemming from new forms of work of the digital and sharing economy, such as measurement, monitoring, assessment, and remuneration of work, the protection of work-life balance, the impact of new technologies on health and safety, the adaptation of occupational skills to new work processes, and the responses to the digital restructuring of undertakings. It addresses a series of questions such as how the representational action of unions and works councils can adapt to the challenges posed by new production systems and whether the legislative framework needs to be reformed to ensure that digital workers enjoy the right to collective representation. This important collection offers readers a renewed theoretical perspective and justification of the role that the dialogue between workers (representatives) and companies could play in an increasingly complex world of work.

Since a reform in 2010, foreign investors can establish a Foreign-Invested Limited Partnership Enterprise (FILPE) in China together with Chinese or foreign investors. The FILPE can be combined with a domestic or foreign corporate general partner, thus allowing for a structure that offers the flexibility and taxation conditions of a partnership while protecting its investors against personal liability like a company. The book explores from the perspective of a foreign investor if the FILPE is an attractive investment vehicle by analysing whether it provides the characteristics that are internationally recognized as constituting a standard corporate form. Among these characteristics, the three that are most strongly interconnected and interdependent form the core of the analysis: legal personality, limited liability and transferable ownership interest. These are analyzed in context of China's restrictive framework of foreign investment regulations and enterprise organization law.

Taking German public basic research as an example, this book explores how the ongoing implementation of knowledge and technology transfer as the Third Mission of academic science creates not only new incentives for academic patenting, but also triggers new patenting motives and strategies of researchers and organizations. Analyzing these motives and strategies, the book highlights how the complex regulatory interplay of the patent system, research policy and self-governed academic communities creates a situation in which new patent functions emerge: beyond their intended function as a protection for upstream inventions, patents become a signaling device for scientists to communicate their commitment and competence in the Third Mission. As an exploratory study, this book combines qualitative empirical research with concepts and insights from multiple fields such as economics, law, political sciences and regulation. In consequence, the book addresses anyone interested in patenting incentives and motives and their impact on the functional change and regulatory effectiveness of patents in polycentric regulatory environments.

Changes to the work on construction projects are a common cause of dispute. Such variations lead to thousands of claims in the UK every year and many more internationally. Liability for variations is not only relevant to claims for sums due for extra work but this is also an important underlying factor in many other construction disputes, such as delay, disruption, defects and project termination. This is the first book to deal exclusively with variations in construction contracts and provide the detailed and comprehensive coverage that it demands.

"Construction Contract Variations "analyses the issues that arise in determining whether certain work is a variation, the contractor s obligation to undertake such work as well as its right to be paid. It deals with the employer s power to vary and the extent of its duties to approve changes. The book also analyses the role of the consultant in the process and the valuation of variations. It reviews these topics by reference to a range of construction contracts.

This is an essential guide for practitioners and industry professionals who advise on these issues and have a role in managing, directing and compensating change. Participants in the construction industry will find this book an invaluable guide, as will specialists and students of construction law, project management and quantity surveying. "

This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers from the 15th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), which was hosted by The Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul Campo Grande, Brazil, from 15--18 August 2021 This book covers a wide range of topics in engineering asset management, including: strategy and standards; sustainability and resiliency; servitisation and Industry 4.0 business models; asset information systems; and asset management decision-making. The breadth and depth of these state-of-the-art, comprehensive proceedings make them an excellent resource for asset management practitioners, researchers, and academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.

In many economic sectors - the digital industries being first and foremost - the market power of dominant firms has been steadily increasing and is rarely challenged by competitors. Existing competition laws and regulations have been unable to make markets more contestable. The book argues that a new competition tool is needed: market investigations. This tool allows authorities to intervene in markets which do not function as they should, due to market features such as network effects, scale economies, switching costs, and behavioural biases. The book explains the role of market investigations, assesses their use in the few jurisdictions where they exist, and discusses how they should be designed. In so doing, it provides an invaluable and timely instrument to both practitioners and academics.

In this fully revised and updated edition, Christopher Bovis provides a detailed, critical, concise and accessible overview of the public procurement legal framework and its interaction with policies within the European Union and the Member States. Public procurement represents an essential part of the Single Market project, launched by European Institutions in 2011. Its regulation will insert competition and transparency in the market and be a safeguard to the attainment of fundamental principles of the Treaties. This book demonstrates the impact of the relevant Directives on Member States through the development of the case law of the European Court of Justice and assesses the judicial review of public contracts at national level. It positions public procurement at the centre of the legal and policy debate surrounding the delivery of public services and the advancement of competitiveness and industrial policy in the EU. The book highlights the pivotal role of public procurement for the Europe 2020 Growth Strategy. Demonstrating the concepts and principles of public procurement, this comprehensive book will have a strong appeal to academic researchers, lawyers, judges, practitioners, and policymakers at the European, international and national levels as well as students of law, policy and management.

Felix Reeh gibt in kompakter Form einen Einstieg in die Gesetzeslage und Rechtsprechung des BGH zu Mangeln an Bauleistungen und Architekten- bzw. Ingenieurleistungen. Es werden insbesondere die Voraussetzungen fur einen Mangel im werkvertragsrechtlichen Sinne vermittelt und die Bedeutung der allgemein anerkannten Regeln der Technik, DIN-Normen und Herstellervorschriften besprochen. Die zutreffende Einordnung von Mangelrugen des Auftraggebers ist entscheidend, um dem Bauherrn Hilfestellung geben zu koennen, aber auch Handlungsbedarf und eigene Risiken rechtzeitig zu erkennen.