NAFTA has initiated a procedure for addressing transborder economic problems in a more adequate and predictable fashion, potentially encouraging policy convergence between three disparate political cultures. Rather than addressing economic, social and environmental policy issues separately, trade policy now serves as a vehicle for negotiating policy convergence. Consequently trade officials are being forced to deal with an expanded array of domestic policy isues. This text presents a detailed examination of the initial NAFTA experience and evaluates its long-term implications beyond those of ending trade and tarriff barriers. In particular, it examines the cultural implications of this international arrangement. In addition, environmental protection and conservation issues are increasingly at the forefront of the international political agenda. NAFTA's environmental side agreement has created a way of addressing environmental concerns whilke protecting local standards, illustrating the attempt to achieve policy convergence by means of a trade apparatus. NAFTA now represents the continuing tension between integration and the maintenance of national autonomy.

Can states adopt protectionist cultural policies? What are the limits, if any, to state intervention in cultural matters? A wide variety of cultural policies may interfere with foreign investments, and a tension therefore exists between the cultural policies of the host state and investment treaty provisions. In some cases, foreign investors have claimed that cultural policies have negatively affected their investments, thereby amounting to a breach of the relevant investment treaty. This study maps the relevant investor-state arbitrations concerning cultural elements and shows that arbitrators have increasingly taken cultural concerns into consideration in deciding cases brought before them, eventually contributing to the coalescence of general principles of law demanding the protection of cultural heritage.

With the development of new and more complex forms of business organization, such as multinationals or corporate groups, the question arose as to whether they could still be regarded as a single legal entity. How should the issue of company liability, for instance, be regarded when dealing with the different subsidiary groups of one large enterprise? The question of company liability with regard to multinationals and corporate groups forms one of the central themes of this work, and one which should interest all those active in today's business world.

The uniqueness of this book is its conceptualization of a corporate group as a system of interaction, comprised of nodes, links and internal governance tools. This framework can be used to understand what constitutes a group, based on affiliation-linkages. By increasing our perception of group-structuring we can assess the extent to which existing laws address all variables. If the law does not consider certain variables to be used for identifying groups, a case of shadow business may be identified. Group-transparency is a recurring topic on the regulatory agenda. In this book, three legal domains are analysed questioning whether specific amendments have led to increased group-transparency: the control-definition for consolidated accounts, shareholder-transparency in company law, and major holding disclosure in listed companies. This book identifies deficiencies of the law in obtaining its regulatory objective of group-transparency, and proposes an interpretative solution based on Systems Thinking.

The book renders a basic overview, in the English language, of current issues and problems in international and Swiss finance market law for both an international and national readership. The first part is concerned with basic facts and figures and the international framework upon which Swiss finance market law is based (in particular, the IMF, WTO, GATS, BIS, IOSCO etc., as well as EU law), followed by an overview of the events regarding dormant accounts. The second part elaborates on the SNB, the FBC and the Swiss banking and securities law (including takeover law). Separate chapters are devoted to the securities alliances, the corporation as a finance instrument and investment funds. Finally, the book covers relevant criminal law subjects in the finance field, banking confidentiality and administrative and legal assistance.

Contrasting arbitration of securities disputes with litigation in the courts, this book reviews the interaction of federal securities laws and arbitration in light of caselaw. This review culminates in the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases supporting the validity of predisputed arbitration agreements even when there are claims of fraud and violations of federal securities law. The common law view of arbitration and the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 are discussed, as are the arbitration process and forums within the securities industry. Procedures (e.g. evaluating the merits of a claim, presenting a securities case to arbitration panels throughout the nation, and appealing an arbitration award) are also examined. It is the only book to date to discuss the new AAA Securities Arbitration Rules.

Ideal for lawyers and securities industry professionals, the book discusses the theories for brokerage firm liability such as securities fraud, churning, the Know Your Customer rule, suitability, problems with trades (e.g. failure of execution or orders), and improper record keeping. It also discusses the use of arbitration to resolve disputes between those working in the industry and reviews the requirements for statements of claims in an arbitration process. Methods of evaluation, statutes, and forms are provided, which will be helpful to both the individual and the lawyer contemplating prosecuting a securities claim in arbitration versus litigation.

Among the prominent legal roles Claus-Dieter Ehlermann has played in his career, his leadership of the Legal Service of the European Commission is perhaps the best known. This liber amicorum appears as his term at the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization draws to a close. In this book 30 of his colleagues offer fresh and provocative insights into many of the areas of international law on which Professor Dr Ehlermann has left his stamp. Topics include: the WTO dispute settlement system; regulation of trade barriers; the first signs of a global jurisprudence; the principle of proportionality; enforcement of competition law; and the place of human rights in European and global integration. This book's evaluations and proposals should find thought-provoking echoes in the minds of all those concerned with any of the integration processes under way in today's interdependent world.

Examining the legal history of the order to pay money initiating a funds transfer, the author tracks basic principles of modern law to those that governed the payment order of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Exploring the legal nature of the payment order and its underpinning in light of contemporary institutions and payment mechanisms, the book traces the evolution of money, payment mechanisms and the law that governs them, from developments in Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, Rome, and Greco-Roman Egypt, through medieval Europe and post-medieval England. Doctrine is examined in Jewish, Islamic, Roman, common and civil laws. Investigating such diverse legal systems and doctrines at the intersection of laws governing bank deposits, obligations, the assignment of debts, and negotiable instruments, the author identifies the common denominator for the evolving legal principles and speculates on possible reciprocity. At the same time he challenges the idea of 'law merchant' as a mercantile creation. The book provides an account of the evolution of payment law as a distinct cohesive body of legal doctrine applicable to funds transfers. It shows how principles of law developed in tandem with the evolution of banking and in response to changing circumstances and proposes a redefinition of 'law merchant'. The author points to deposit banking and emerging technologies as embodying a great potential for future non-cash payment system growth. However, he recommends caution in predicting both the future of deposit banking and the overall impact of technology. At the same time he expresses confidence in the durability of legal doctrine to continue to evolve and accommodate future payment system developments.

On 1 January 2016 the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) became fully operational. The SRM creates a framework for the uniform resolution of banks in the euro area and after the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), it is the second pillar of the European Banking Union. Whereas the SSM aims to reduce the risk of bank failure by unifying the supervision of banks, the SRM's aim is to increase the likelihood that a bank has been made "safe to fail", if it is likely to fail; and to reduce the risk of a government having to bail out a bank, if it actually fails. The key actor in the framework of the SRM is the Single Resolution Board (SRB). The SRB is the European agency responsible for the effective and consistent functioning of the SRM. This entails a responsibility for drawing up resolution plans and adopting decisions relating to resolution for the institutions that are within its realm. The actual execution of the adopted resolution scheme must be closely monitored by the SRB, but is carried out by the national resolution authorities (NRA). For institutions that fall outside the scope of the SRB's powers, the national resolution authorities are competent to adopt resolution plans and to take resolution decisions, albeit under oversight of the SRB. The SRB will be in charge of the Single Resolution Fund, a European pool of money that is transferred from domestic resolution funds, financed by the banking sector and set up to ensure that medium-term funding support is available while a credit institution is being restructured. This book takes stock after a year of application of the SRM and examines the situation from various perspectives: the perspective of the SRB, the NRA, the supervised bank and judicial protection. Special attention is given to the division of power between the SRB and the NRA and the impact on the supervised bank, the relationship and links between the SRM and the SSM and the query whether the right balance between national and supranational powers has been struck, also in view of the principle of subsidiarity. With contributions from Pierre E. Berger, Rudi Bonte, Evy De Batselier, Hans Gilliams, Stijn Goovaerts, Yves Herinckx, David Vanderstraeten and Eddy Wymeersch.

In this innovative and exhaustive study, Steven A. Ramirez posits that the subprime mortgage crisis, as well as the global macroeconomic catastrophe it spawned, is traceable to a gross failure of law. The rule of law must appropriately channel and constrain the exercise of economic and political power. Used effectively, it ensures that economic opportunity isn't limited to a small group of elites that enjoy growth at the expense of many, particularly those in vulnerable economic situations. In Lawless Capitalism, Ramirez calls for the rule of law to displace crony capitalism. Only through the rule of law, he argues, can capitalism be reconstructed.

"United States Securities Law: A Practical Guide" offers a concise overview of US securities laws from the perspective of a non-US participant. It is written not only for lawyers but for managers, bankers and others with an interest in the topic. This new edition has been significantly updated and expanded, including for the SEC's recent offering reforms and corporate governance developments.

The European system of insurance supervision under Solvency II constitutes a parallel to supervision of credit institutions under Basel III. At the heart of this new European insurance supervisory regime are the Solvency II Directive, the attendant regulation, and the EIOPA Regulation. The present volume, "Treatises on Solvency II", includes articles on the bases of European insurance supervision and the associated three pillars of solvency, governance, and disclosure, all viewed predominantly from a legal standpoint.

There is little doubt that a series of EU Directives on money laundering and on public procurement have not reduced the incidence of financial crime in public contracts, in banking transactions, or in dealings among the "vulnerable" professions (mainly accountants, lawyers, and notaries). It is the convincingly argued thesis of this book that this failure stems directly from the dependence of these EU Directives on national laws on criminal records. Harmonisation of these laws, the book demonstrates, is not only necessary but urgent. In eighteen incisive essays, leading European authorities in the field provide in-depth discussion of such elements of the subject as methodologies for collecting criminal records, the authorities maintaining such records, the contents of such records and who has access to them, and conflicts with human rights and privacy legislation. The authors show that these factors and others vary enormously from country to country. They recommend EU initiatives that clearly mandate such specifications as the following: efficient exchange of criminal record data among national authorities; which crimes lead to compulsory exclusion from employment, membership, or participation in banking or public tenders; the specific types of employment, membership, and participation affected; erasure period for convictions; level of access for banks, professional associations, and tendering authorities to criminal records; and, exchange of criminal record data in the framework of EU data protection legislation. Standing as it does at a pressure point where criminal law collides with human rights on the one hand and public contracts on the other, this seminal work has a great deal to offer interested parties in several diverse fields of law and administration. The findings and recommendations of its authors are sure to evoke debate across a broad spectrum of academic, professional, and policymaking endeavour.

This book examines good faith in non-marine insurance and takaful (Islamic insurance) contracts in Malaysia, and proposes holistic law reform of the same. The first two-thirds of the book comprise an extensive comparative legal analysis of the issues between Malaysia, Australia and the United Kingdom, with the final third dedicated to a socio-economic analysis of law reform and suggestions for law reform particularly suited to Malaysia. The book evaluates whether the duty of utmost good faith (the cornerstone of insurance and takaful contracts) is effectively regulated and, in turn, observed by insurers (and takaful operators) and insureds alike in Malaysia. The adequacy of the Insurance Act 1996 (Malaysia), the Takaful Act 1984 (Malaysia), the Financial Services Act 2013 (Malaysia) and the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 (Malaysia) is evaluated, along with the supporting infrastructure and oversight measures introduced by the Malaysian government. In doing so, The book examines the duty of utmost good faith from both a doctrinal and a social science perspective, in order to propose suitable legal reform.

While hedge funds have been part and parcel of the global asset management landscape for well over fifty years, it is only relatively recently that they came to prominence as one of the fastest growing and most vigorous sub-sectors of the financial services industry. Despite their growing significance for global and European financial markets, hedge funds continue enjoying a sui generis regulatory status. The ongoing credit crisis and its lessons for the wisdom of unregulated or loosely regulated pockets of financial activity raise, with renewed urgency, the issue of deciding how long for the relative regulatory immunity of hedge funds is to be tolerated in the name of financial innovation. This well-thought-out book, the first of its kind in this particular field, examines the case for the European onshore hedge fund industry's regulation, making concrete proposals for its normative future. Following a detailed account of the 'established' regulatory systems in Ireland and Luxembourg, as well as of the 'emerging' hedge fund jurisdictions in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, and of the regulatory treatment of hedge funds in the UK, this book examines to what extent the continuing exclusion of hedge funds from harmonized European regulation is defensible, whether their differences to traditional asset management products justify their distinct regulatory treatment and, ultimately, if their EU-wide regulation is possible and, if so, what form this should take. This book offers enormously valuable insights into all facets of the subject of the regulation of hedge funds, including: * the legitimacy of the public policy interest in their activities; * the conceptual underpinnings and systemic stability emphasis of a realistic hedge fund regulatory scheme; * the main parameters of a workable onshore hedge fund regulatory framework; * the role of investor protection and market integrity as part of a holistic hedge fund regulatory scheme; * the possible use of the UCITS framework as a foundation for the EU-wide regulation of hedge funds; * the MiFID's impact on the regulatory future of the European hedge fund industry; * existing cross-jurisdictional differences and similarities in the normative treatment of hedge funds within the EU; * hitherto initiatives and recommendations of the Community institutions and bodies; and * the need for more efficient co-operation and information-sharing arrangements amongst national supervisors for the monitoring of the cross-border risks inherent in the activities of hedge funds. As the first ever comprehensive account of the profile, main features and normative future of the contemporary global and European hedge fund markets - including a systematic inquiry into the conceptual underpinnings of hedge fund regulation and a detailed examination of the European hedge fund industry's treatment under Community and domestic law - this book represents a major contribution to the literature on hedge funds and their regulation which, through its concrete proposals for the onshore industry's regulation and its clear analysis of the conditions necessary for their implementation, should be of extraordinary value to policymakers, supervisors and academics alike.

Legal systems around the world vary widely in terms of how they deal with the transfer of and security interests in receivables. The aim of this book is to help international financiers and lawyers in relevant markets in their practice of international receivables financing. Substantively, this book analyses three types of receivables financing transactions, ie outright transfer, security transfer and security interests. This book covers comprehensive comparison and analysis of the laws on the transfer of and security interests in receivables of fifteen major jurisdictions, encompassing common law jurisdictions, Roman-Germanic jurisdictions and French-Napoleonic jurisdictions, as well as relevant EU Directives. To be more specific, this book compares and analyses the relevant legal systems of the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Japan, France, Belgium, England, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Furthermore, in order to analyse those legal systems from the international perspective, this book compares relevant international conventions; it also proposes to establish an international registration system for the transfer of and security interests in receivables.

This book explores the pressing topic of dark trading. Following new EU legislation regulating financial markets (MiFID II and MiFIR), it traces the development of off-market securities trading ("dark trading"), analyzes economic studies of this development, and positions the resulting regulatory framework of the EU over against that of the US. The study closes with proposals for reform that provide new impetus for further academic discussion.

As the United States banking system enters the 1990s, the industry and its regulators face a crisis of major proportions. Successive problems have plagued various lending markets, bank failure rates have increased, and traditional regulatory techniques of risk control have proved unsuccessful. In this work, Helen A. Garten examines the current crisis in bank regulation and the regulatory response. In addition, she provides a series of recommendations for reforming the system so that regulatory failure will not occur again.

Garten begins her study with a strategic view of bank regulation as a response to financial crises in the banking business. Just as the bank failures of the 1930s led to a radical shift in bank regulatory technique, recent competitive pressures and technological innovations that have lessened the profitability of the deposit-lending business are leading to a shift in regulatory strategy today. Although some deregulation has taken place, Garten contends that more significant changes are occurring in the regulation that remains. Regulators are experimenting with a new approach to risk control that will create economic incentives for banks to adopt more successful investment strategies. Garten compares these new regulatory initiatives to the disciplinary techniques of the typical corporate equityholder and shows how they differ from the debtholder's techniques of traditional post-Depression bank regulation. She concludes that the new regulatory strategy may not be enough to help the banking industry emerge from its current difficulties. This work will be an essential resource for lawyers and bankers involved with regulatory policy, as well as for economists and scholars of finance and administrative law.

In the past twenty years action in respect of the profits of crime has moved rapidly up the criminal justice agenda. Not only may confiscation orders be made,but there are also now serious substantive criminal offences of laundering the proceeds of crime. Moreover, the consequences of the regulatory regimes put in place by the Money Laundering Regulations 1993 and the Financial Services Authority are very significant. This book examines critically the history, theory and practice of all these developments, culminating in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which marks another step in the move towards greater concentration both on the financial aspects of crime and on the internationalisation of criminal law. The Act puts in place the Assets Recovery Agency, which will be central to the strategy of targeting criminal monies and will have power to bring forfeiture proceedings without a prior criminal conviction and to raise assessments to taxation. The author subjects the law of laundering, especially the novel aspects of the Proceeds of Crime Act itself, to thorough analysis and a human rights' audit. Contents: Introduction; The Economics of Money Laundering; Theory: Justifications for Forfeiture, Confiscation, and Criminalisation; History of Forfeiture and Confiscation Provisions; The International Dimension; Forfeiture Provisions; Statutory Confiscation Provisions; Investigatory Powers; Beyond Confiscation - Criminalisation; Acquisition and Deployment of Money for Terrorism; Confiscation without Conviction - 'Civil Recovery'; Money Laundering and the Professions

The European experience suggests that the efforts made to achieve an efficient trade-off between monetary policy and prudential supervision ultimately failed. The severity of the global crisis have pushed central banks to explore innovative tools-within or beyond their statutory constraints-capable of restoring the smooth functioning of the financial cycle, including setting macroprudential policy instruments in the regulatory toolkit. But macroprudential and monetary policies, by sharing multiple transmission channels, may interact-and conflict-with each other. Such conflicts may represent not only an economic challenge in the pursuit of price and financial stability, but also a legal uncertainty characterizing the regulatory developments of the EU macroprudential and monetary frameworks. In analyzing the "legal interaction" between the two frameworks in the EU, this book seeks to provide evidence of the inconsistencies associated with the structural separation of macroprudential and monetary frameworks, shedding light upon the legal instruments that could reconcile any potential policy inconsistency.

Despite a clear distinction in law between equity and debt, the results of such a categorization can be misleading. The growth of financial innovation in recent decades necessitates the allocation of control and cash-flow rights in a way that diverges from the classic understanding. Some of the financial instruments issued by companies, so-called hybrid instruments, fall into a grey area between debt and equity, forcing regulators to look beyond the legal form of an instrument to its practical substance. This innovative study, by emphasizing the agency relations and the property law claims embedded in the use of such unconventional instruments, analyses and discusses the governance regulation of hybrids in a way that is primarily functional, departing from more common approaches that focus on tax advantages and internal corporate control. The author assesses the role of hybrid instruments in the modern company, unveiling the costs and benefits of issuing these securities, recognizing and categorizing the different problem fields in which hybrids play an important role, and identifying legal and contracting solutions to governance and finance problems. The full-scale analysis compares the U.K. law dealing with hybrid instruments with the corresponding law of the the most relevant U.S. jurisdictions in relation to company law. The following issues, among many others, are raised: A { decisions under uncertainty when the risks of opportunism of the parties is very high; A { contract incompleteness and ex post conflicts; A { protection of convertible bondholders in mergers and acquisitions and in assets disposal; A { use of convertible bonds to reorganise and restructure a firm; A { timing of the conversion and the issuer A|s call option; A { majority-minority conflict in venture capital financing; A { duty of loyalty; A { fiduciary duties to preference shareholders; and A { financial contract design for controlling the board A|s power in exit events. Throughout, the analysis includes discussion, comparison, and evaluation of statutory provisions, existing legal standards, and strategies for protection. It is unlikely that a more thorough or informative account exists of the complex regulatory problems created by hybrid financial instruments and of the different ways in which regulatory regimes have responded to the problems they raise. Because business parties in these jurisdictions have a lot of scope and a strong incentive to contract for their rights, this book will also be of uncommon practical value to corporate counsel and financial regulators as well as to interested academics.

This unique book covers all aspects of operating and maintaining a tax exempt organization, within federal and state laws, from creation to dissolution. It begins by defining the various functions of organizers; the types of organizations, including unincorporated associations, charitable trusts, foundations, and nonprofit corporations; and the duties and liabilities imposed by the law on such organizations. The author shows how to determine if the goals and purposes of the organization fit into the statutory scheme for obtaining tax exempt status and helps the reader to decide which type of organization will best suit his or her needs. He points out the advantages and disadvantages, the legal effect, and the requirements of each. Finally, he explains how to terminate a tax exempt organization and the consequences of termination.

This book analyses the ongoing reform of the European economic union in the light of the new objective of 'stability of the euro area as a whole' in Article 136(3) TFEU. On the basis of the relevant legal sources, it qualifies this objective as the obligation to preserve the existence of the monetary union, the establishment of which was an EU goal laid down in Article 3(4) TEU. While to date the objective has been achieved through fiscal and macroeconomic consolidation in the member states and the activation of stabilisation mechanisms in cases of emergency, the book argues that full stability requires a better system of economic governance, either through a process of partial fiscal centralisation or the return to a more efficient and sustainable market discipline of public finances. It also analyses the concrete legal challenges these raise, including compliance with the conferral principle, the longstanding democratic deficit of the governance and the balance between financial solidarity and fiscal responsibility.