This book presents a critical analysis of the rules on the contents and effects of contracts included in the proposal for a Common European Sales Law (CESL). The European Commission published this proposal in October 2011 and then withdrew it in December 2014, notwithstanding the support the proposal had received from the European Parliament in February 2014. On 6 May 2015, in its Communication 'A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe', the Commission expressed its intention to "make an amended legislative proposal (...) further harmonising the main rights and obligations of the parties to a sales contract". The critical comments and suggestions contained in this book, to be understood as lessons to learn from the CESL, intend to help not only the Commission but also other national and supranational actors, both public and private (including courts, lawyers, stakeholders, contract parties, academics and students) in dealing with present and future European and national instruments in the field of contract law. The book is structured into two parts. The first part contains five essays exploring the origin, the ambitions and the possible future role of the CESL and its rules on the contents and effects of contracts. The second part contains specific comments to each of the model rules on the contents and effects of contracts laid down in Chapter 7 CESL (Art. 66-78). Together, the essays and comments in this volume contribute to answering the question of whether and to what extent rules such as those laid down in Art. 66-78 CESL could improve or worsen the position of consumers and businesses in comparison to the correspondent provisions of national contract law. The volume adopts a comparative perspective focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on German and Dutch law.

Intended for both business people and legal practitioners, this book offers a practical conceptual framework for the analysis and implementation of cross-border technology transactions, as well as alerting potential parties to technology transfers to the salient issues they should systematically confront and resolve as they seek to structure and implement their transaction. Particular attention is devoted to the identification of traps in the path of successful international-technology transfer. The term "technology" is used in the book in its broadest possible sense, including what in some countries is referred to as "industrial property" and encompassing all legal categories of intellectual property, such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, know-how and trade secrets. The book applies an interdisciplinary approach to a complex and interdisciplinary subject and seeks to harmonize the frequently divergent perspectives that business people and lawyers bring to technology transactions. The topics covered include intellectual-property regimes and how to safeguard one's proprietary rights in technology; contractual provisions; tax structures and tax implications of technology-transfer transactions; and conflicts of law, choice of law and dispute resolution in the international technology-transfer context.

Banking Regulation and World Trade Law concerns the legal aspects of the interaction between banking regulation and international trade in financial services. The author studies the internal banking market of the European Union, the liberalisation of financial services trade in the World Trade Organization, the accords of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the European Central Bank. The book focuses on the balancing between banking regulation and international trade law. It discusses discrimination and proportionality in national banking regulation, the allocation of prudential regulation and supervision between home and host country, and international financial law-making. The author questions decentralised/nation-based banking regulation and supervision as a foundation for a sustainable liberalisation of international trade in financial services. The book considers various reforms of the international financial architecture, such as the incorporation of the Basel processes and accords into the WTO system, and the setting up of new international institutions by building on the Basel Committees or the IMF structures. The role of central banking in designing the international financial architecture is also explored: the book reviews the ECB's competence over foreign exchange policy and its function as lender of last resort, and treats price stability, banking soundness and representation as critical concepts. The analysis also reveals that the concept of 'prudential', despite its extensive use in banking regulation, has not been defined with adequate precision. In seeking to delineate the interface between international economic law and banking regulation, Dr Panourgias builds on the rich European scholarship on institutional financial issues and the US interdisciplinary approach to world trade law. He also entertains the notion of international financial law as a distinct field. The book will be of particular interest to those concerned with financial law and international banking.

Trade policy has played a vital role in the decline of European electronics business. The events that resulted in the disappearance of the European television industry, of a European and Japanese video recorder format and of other European consumer electronics are directly related to market structures in exporting countries and business practices. In this book, factual business data shows and economic models explain how restrictive trade practices result in elimination of efficient competitors in export markets. It deals with the memorable case how a videocassette recorder format was established by dumping and how politics enabled it. An innovative tariff increase for CD players was invalidated by heavy dumping, causing closure of production in Europe. European CTV industry succumbed under permanent dumping and a series of biases - as the interest of a state-owned company - and serious errors making trade instruments void and rules irreconcilable with international agreements. Practical and theoretical examples and explanations, some in detail, of trade rules are provided. The book sketches events - carelessness, prejudice or special interests, arbitrary and false application of trade instruments and fraud - resulting in disappearance of various European electronics business segments.

The laws of the Member States of the European Union and the tax treaties concluded by them - being part of their national laws - must be consistent with European Community law. Apart from EC Directives and Regulations, the EC Treaty itself contains rules directly applicable to matters of international taxation. In this context the decisions of the European Court of Justice on the fundamental freedoms laid down in the EC treaty are of primary importance. If a provision of a tax treaty is in conflict with the EC Treaty, it is superseded by the Treaty provisions. The EC Treaty may therefore have the effect of changing the content of tax treaties, a matter of crucial importance to international tax planning techniques. This collection of essays examines the effects of primary European Community law, in particular the fundamental freedom provisions in the EC Treaty, on tax treaties concluded by the Member States. Using the method of examination employed by the European Court of Justice, the contributors to this volume present a systematic analysis of the effects of the interaction of national tax law, tax treaty law and the EC Treaty.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the scope of European Merger Control Regulations. It follows a practical approach, which is aimed at fulfilling the need for a straightforward, user-friendly introduction to the workings of merger control at European level. It is designed to provide the reader with the framework provisions, as opposed to a case-by-case analysis, thereby enabling those involved with mergers to understand more comprehensively how the regulations and the decisions of the Merger Task Force affect specific mergers, organizations and business. The scope and functions of the Merger Regulations are set out fully and step-by-step guides to the various procedures are provided. Information sources include the full text of the Regulations as amended, relevant Commission Notices, and details of the national authorities dealing with mergers. As the EU moves further towards the accomplishment of the internal market and as mergers of ever-increasing value take place, the Merger Regulations and the work of the Merger Task Force has become of heightened importance.

The book examines how the absence of insurance in the past led to some special maritime liability law principles such as 'general average' (i.e., losses or expenses shared by all the parties to a maritime adventure) and the limitation of shipowners' liability. In the absence of insurance, these principles served the function of insurance mostly for shipowners. As commercial marine insurance is now widely available, these principles have lost their justification and may in fact interfere with the most important goal of liability law i.e., deterrence from negligence. The work thus recommends their abolition. It further argues that when insurance is easily available and affordable to the both parties to a liability claim, the main goal of liability law should be deterrence as opposed to compensation. This is exactly the case with the maritime cargo liability claims where both cargo owners and shipowners are invariably insured. As a result, the sole focus of cargo liability law should be and to a great extent, is deterrence. On the other hand in the vessel-source oil pollution liability setting, pollution victims are not usually insured. Therefore oil pollution liability law has to cater both for compensation and deterrence, the two traditional goals of liability law. The final question the work addresses is whether the deterrent effect of liability law is affected by the availability of liability insurance. Contrary to the popular belief the work attempts to prove that the presence of liability insurance is not necessarily a hindrance but can be a complementary force towards the realization of deterrent goal of liability law.

This book presents an analysis of the concept of the administrative act and its classification as 'foreign', and studies the administrative procedure for adopting administrative acts in a range of countries in and outside Europe. While focusing on the recognition and execution of foreign administrative acts, the book examines the validity, efficacy and enforceability of foreign administrative acts at national level. The book starts with a general analysis of the issue, offering general conclusions about the experiences in different countries. It then analyses the aforementioned themes from the perspective of the domestic law of different European nations and a number of international organisations (European Union, MERCOSUR, and Andean Community). In addition, the book studies the role of the European Union in the progress towards the recognition and execution of foreign administrative acts, where the principle of mutual recognition plays a vital part. Finally, the book analyses the international conventions on the recognition and execution of administrative acts and on the legalisation of public documents.

The law of tracing is a complex subject which has struggled to find a home in works on property, equity, commercial law and restitution. Broadly speaking, it addresses the question of when rights held in an asset can be asserted in another asset despite changes in form or attempts to 'launder' the initial asset. Properly understood this area of study is composed of several distinct topics. This book explores all the areas covered by the law of tracing in a degree of detail not previously reached in more general works.

The global economy poses major new questions for employment and social policy on an international scale. Governments worldwide face dilemmas; whether to liberalize trade and investment or opt for protectionism; and whether to create flexible or tightly regulated labour markets. These same questions are hotly debated within the World Trade Organization, the International Labour Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and also within regional blocs such as the European Union, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, APEC and SADC. For neo-liberals, as for old-style labour protectionists, the choices may appear to be relatively simple. But most Governments and policy makers are striving to achieve a balance between free trade and investment on the one hand and high employment and raised social standards on the other. This book, written by a leading authority on international labour law, provides a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the complex policy and legal choices which face those wishing pursue a broadly social democratic response to the removal of barriers to trade and investment in a globalized market economy dominated by transnational corporations.

The Treaty of Lisbon (2009) has brought foreign direct investment (FDI) within the scope of the European Union's common commercial policy (CCP). In light of this development, this book analyses the internal and external dimension of EU law and policy in the field of FDI. It takes four perspectives: (i) the operation of the internal market mechanism to direct investment; (ii) the implications of the Lisbon amendments to the CCP under Article 207 TFEU for the Union's competence and practice in the field of FDI; (iii) the interaction between EU law and Member States' bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with third countries; (iv) the interplay between EU law and BITs that are currently in force between two Member States (intra-EU BITs). The book focuses on the extent to which the European Union operates as a Single Market for EU and non-EU investors. In doing so, it analyses the EU and international regulatory framework on the admission, treatment and protection of FDI within, to and from the Single European Market. It uses close jurisprudential analysis and examines the context, purpose and evolution of EU legal integration in the field of FDI. It thereby traces the principles underlying the European international economic order in the field of FDI.

In the law of contracts, the term "internationalization" has come to mean the removal of transactions from any nation's legal standards, system of dispute resolution, or commercial practices. The benefits include avoidance of choice-of-law and venue deadlocks, use of clearly defined terms (sometimes specialized for a particular industry) that have attained general international usage, and escape from the jurisdiction of unacceptable laws, legal systems and courts. The trend has picked up speed in recent years, to the point where many business people want their contracts "internationalized" as a matter of course. This volume focuses on the elements that make a contract "international" in the new sense, and the interrelationships between those elements, rather than on the constantly changing mass of attendant detail. It provides an understanding of the principles that underlie the structure of a sound international commercial contract, and aims to give the practitioner the insight necessary to negotiate such a contract successfully, whatever the particular circumstances. To clarify such an understanding of "internationalization", the author describes and analyzes aspects of the following international contract law regimes: the United Nations convention on contracts for the international sale of goods (CISG); the UNIDROIT principles; CISG and UNIDROIT jurisprudence; the "lex mercatoria" and other international, regional, and national contract law principles; privately established rules, standards and certifications; model contracts, provisions, and standards; and international commercial arbitration regimes and other non-national dispute resolution fora. A final chapter deals exclusively with practical applications - when to and when not to "internationalize" a contract, how to plan for effectiveness and the best advantage, and selecting appropriate and consistent devices for "internationalization".

This reference work examines the procedure and practice relating to commercial agreements and trade association practices under UK and EC competition laws. It first covers procedure in both the UK and EC, and then provides a detailed comparative analysis of all the major types of commercial agreements and trade association practices in both UK and EC law. Since much of competition law is, in practice, administered by administrative rather than judicial bodies, full treatment is given to the informal administrative solutions applied by the authorities. However, as an increasing amount of competition law is subject to litigation, there is also in-depth analysis of all the major cases. There is also a full discussion of the EC block exemptions and recent developments in UK competition law.

This work, perhaps for the first time, provides a description of the great variety of proposals at EEC level for the reform and harmonisation of intellectual property law. It addresses patents, copyright and neighbouring rights, trade marks, biotechnology, semiconductor chips, topography right, industrial designs and plant breeders' rights. Save as required for the purpose of shedding light on the EEC proposals, it does not attempt to examine member states' national laws. In the case of industrial designs, where no harmonisation has yet been proposed, a very brief survey of national jurisdictions is presented. There is a useful appendix of documents, a bibliography and index. This practical handbook will prove invaluable to practitioners, both in the IP field and non-specialists, seeking up-to-date information on European developments, including solicitors, barristers, patent agents and trade mark agents in private practice, commerce and industry throughout the EEC and in Member States' major trading partners.

Providing a desk reference for lawyers and others involved from time to time in the issuance or sale of securities outside their own national jurisdiction, this handbook presents briefly, in uniform summary form, the key elements of securities law and regulations in 20 national jurisdictions and seven US state jurisdictions. It aims to enable a foreign lawyer to gain a general understanding of the legal environment affecting securities, to perceive the types of questions which need to be addressed, to talk intelligently with his or her clients concerning these questions and the need for foreign legal advice and assistance, and to interact effectively with foreign counsel.

The book presents contributions from Brazilian experts on the regulation of different energy sources. Focusing on describing and discussing the fundamental issues related to the legal regulation of each of the sources that compose Brazil's energy matrix, it also analyzes economic and strategic aspects and identifies the main current problems related to the exploration for and production of each energy source. The book offers a clear and detailed overview of energy law and regulation for policymakers, foreign investors and legal professionals dealing with energy projects in Brazil.

The 2008 UNCITRAL Convention commonly known as the Rotterdam Rules promises to achieve the hitherto elusive goal of a legal unification of international transport contracts. Its innovative set of rules accommodates such modern trade practices as those treating the carriage of goods by sea as part of wider door-to-door commercial transport operations and those relying on electronic commerce. It closes many gaps in the existing international transport regime, thoroughly specifying the relation of transport documents to the rights and obligations between exporters and importers of goods, and clarifying the interests of credit and insurance in contracts of carriage. This remarkable book, which will examine the Rotterdam Rules in depth, is edited and written by international lawyers intimately familiar with the negotiations leading to the Convention in finished form. It proceeds by a detailed analysis of each of the Convention's 18 chapters in turn, in a clause-by-clause manner, drawing attention to interlinking implications throughout the document. The book's lucid insights and guidance are especially valuable in showing exactly how the Rules improve the existing international transport regime through its clearer and more complete regulation of such elements as the following: allocation of burden of proof; evidentiary value of transport documents and electronic records, including non-negotiable documents and records; freedom of contract in respect of volume contracts; continuous character of the obligation of seaworthiness; limits of liability; rights during transit; recovery of loss of and damage to goods caused by accidents of navigation; and, jurisdiction and arbitration. It also includes: role of subcontracted carriers both on sea and inland; role of warehouses, transport terminals and stevedoring companies; risks and contract practices of lenders; interests of freight forwarders, cargo insurers and liability insurers; and, prevention of maritime fraud. The authors provide a crystal-clear picture that allows the reader to appreciate the balanced way in which the interests of the various stakeholders are addressed by the Rules - the greater legal certainty for each party's legal position, the freedom to extend the Rules by contract to the whole transport operation, the clear legal basis for the use of electronic transport records, and the flexibility with which the Rules have left room for evolving trade practices. It will be of immeasurable value to practitioners and all parties interested in understanding how the new Convention operates and how the provisions are intended to be applied after the Convention comes into force.

This book provides practical solutions for addressing energy efficiency as a clause term within a charter party contract. For this, upon a reflection of the regulatory craft, it analyzes key concepts of case law, and discusses them together with commercial and economic principles. In this way, the book aims at offering a comprehensive, interdisciplinary view of the chartering process, together with a new approach for safeguarding energy efficiency investments. A special emphasis is given to the maritime industry. Here, the newly developed framework, based on game theory, has been successfully applied to demonstrate the importance of including a clause term in contract negotiation to achieve protection against both an uncertain market and an even more challenging shipping environment. The book not only fills a gap in the literature, covering a topic that has been largely neglected to date, yet it offers researchers and practitioners extensive information to change the chartering process radically.

Assessing the extent to which armed conflict impacts the obligations that states have towards foreign investors and their investments under international investment treaties requires considering a wide range of issues, many of which are systemic in nature. These include substantive and procedural topics, not only with regard to international investment law, but also concerning the law on the use of force, international humanitarian law and human rights law, the law of treaties, the law of state responsibility and the law of state succession.This volume provides an in-depth assessment of the overlap between international investment law and the law of armed conflict by charting the terrain of the multifaceted and complex relationship between these two fields of public international law, fostering debate and offering novel perspectives on the matter.

The technical, economic, and social development of the last 100 years has created a new type of long-term contract which one may call "Complex International Contract". Typical examples include complex civil engineering and constructions contracts as well as joint venture, shareholders, project finance, franchising, co-operation and management agreements. The dispute resolution mechanism, which normally deals with such contracts, is commercial arbitration, which has been deeply affected in recent decades by attempts to improve its capabilities. Most importantly, there is the trend towards further denationalization of arbitration with respect to the applicable substantive law. In this regard, a new generation of conflict rules no longer imposes on the arbitrators a particular method to be applied for the purpose of determining the applicable rules of law. Moreover, arbitration more frequently took on the task of adapting Complex International Contracts to changed circumstances. Also, special rules have been developed for so-called multi-party arbitration and fast track arbitration facilitating efficient dispute resolution. The author describes these trends both from a practical as well as a theoretical perspective, evaluating not only the advantages, but also the risks involved with the new developments in arbitration. Relevant issues with respect to the drafting and renegotiation of such contracts are also discussed.

In Investors, States, and Arbitrators in the Crosshairs of International Investment Law and Environmental Protection, Dr Crina Baltag and Ylli Dautaj look at the investor-State dispute settlement system and inquire whether this is the most suitable transnational venue for resolving investment disputes that have an environmental component. This culminates essentially in whether arbitration is a legitimate forum and whether privately appointed arbitrators appropriately can resolve environmental-related disputes. These disputes are bound to increase in frequency because host-States are also partaking in global efforts to respond to environmental challenges.

The Dispute Settlement Reports of the World Trade Organization (WTO) include Panel and Appellate Body reports, as well as arbitration awards, in disputes concerning the rights and obligations of WTO members under the provisions of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization. These are the WTO authorized and paginated reports in English. An essential addition to the library of all practising and academic trade lawyers, and needed by students worldwide taking courses in international economic or trade law. DSR 2005: XII reports on United States - Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services.

This book investigates the impact of EU law and policy on the Member States' higher education institution (HEI) sectors with a particular emphasis on the exposure of research in universities to EU competition law. It illustrates how the gradual application of EU economic law to HEIs which were predominantly identified as being within the public sector creates tensions between the economic and the social spheres in the EU. Given the reluctance of the Member States to openly develop an EU level HEI policy, these tensions appear as unintended consequences of the traditional application of the EU Treaty provisions in areas such as Union Citizenship, the free movement provisions and competition policy to the HEI sector. These developments may endanger the traditional non-economic mission of European HEIs. In this respect, the effects of Union Citizenship and free movement law on HEIs have received some attention but the impact of EU competition law constitutes a largely unexplored area of research and this book redresses that imbalance. The aim of the research is to show that intended and unintended consequences of the EU economic constitution(s) are enhanced by a parallel tendency of Member States to commercialise formerly public sectors such as the HEI sector. The book investigates the potential tensions through doctrinal analysis and a qualitative study focussing on the exposure of HEI research to EU competition law as an under-researched example of exposure to economic constraints. It concludes that such exposure may compromise the wider aims that research intensive universities pursue in the public interest. Andrea Gideon is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Law & Business (National University of Singapore) for which she has suspended her position as Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool. In her current project she is investigating the application of competition law to public services in ASEAN. Her previous research concerned tensions between the economic and the social in the EU with a focus on EU competition law in which research area she earned her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2014.

This text is the result of an initiative by the International Trade Law Committee of the International Law Committee of the International Law Association to promote the progressive development of GATT/WTO law, and especially of its dispute settlement system, by making a comparative legal study of international and regional law and dispute settlement practice. Until recently there has been little discussion of the problems of GATT/WTO law and GATT dispute settlement practice. Part I of the book introduces the basic principles, procedures and historical evolution of the GATT/WTO dispute settlement system. It analyses the first experience and current legal problems with the new WTO dispute settlement system, such as the application of the Dispute Settlement Understanding to trade in services, intellectual property rights and restrictive business practices, the scope for "non-violation complaints", the standards of review, intervention by third parties, and the appellate review procedures and case-law. Part II examines the evolution of international trade law, and the application of the GATT/WTO dispute settlement procedures, in specific areas of international economic law, such as anti-dumping law, agricultural and textiles trade, restrictive business practices, trade-related environmental measures, the General Agreement on Trade in Services, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and the Agreement on Government Procurement. Part III describes procedures for the settlement of international trade disputes in domestic courts and regional trade agreements, such as the EC, the South American Common Market and NAFTA and examines their interrelationships with the GATT/WTO dispute rules and procedures. The Annexes include tables of past GATT/TWO dispute settlement proceedings, as well as the texts of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Understanding and of the Working Procedures adopted by the Appellate Body of the WTO.