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The goal of our paper is to demonstrate the potential effects of a tax on paying a ransom on the incentives of stakeholders involved: both the perpetrators (the attackers placing the ransomware) as well as the potential victim. We do think that there is a case for a ransom tax, but we do also realise that it is not easy to make that case, and hence we express this doubt in our title. A tax could stimulate ex ante cybersecurity and also (when price elasticity is not too low) reduce ex post ransom payments. In addition, a tax in combination with a smartly designed subsidy could have benefits.

Purpose This paper aims to draw attention to an urgent need for reform of the regulatory framework of the broader export credit system to ensure a new and comprehensive “safe haven” for officially supported export credits. The purpose is to analyse the complex debate on disciplines of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), creating a point of reference for future analysis of and debates around the “carve-out clause” of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) and a “safe haven” in a broader sense. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes inspiration from legal, economic and political science literature on subsidies and officially supported export credits, as well as on legal documents related to the WTO and the OECD. It examines the WTO subsidy and the OECD export credits framework, focusing on main legal and economic governance aspects. Then, it gives a critical analysis how “safe” a “safe haven” in a broader sense might be, assessing frictions of and solutions for the fundamentally different set of disciplines, limitations, financial instruments not covered by OECD regulations, as well as new challenges related to climate finance. Findings After assessing the challenges regarding the “carve-out clause” of the WTO subsidy framework and two tracks aiming to create a new “safe haven”, requirements for comprehensive disciplines for officially supported export credits are pointed out. Furthermore, several misunderstandings and mistakes appearing in the debate are clarified. Research limitations/implications Desktop research rather than empirical field work. Practical implications This paper creates awareness for governments and exporters how to deal with a complex system of interrelated disciplines. The question, how “safe” a “safe haven” in a broader sense can be, has not been resolved yet. Some authors focus on the WTO disciplines not taking into account the need for an effective matching procedure of the Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits (the Arrangement). Furthermore, the introduction of several new pre-export financing programmes and the growing significance of climate finance-related instruments for export credit agencies creates both opportunities and challenges. This paper can serve as a reference point for the academic debate and further research. This paper also offers newcomers to the topic a comprehensive overview. Originality/value Although the “carve-out clause” and the Arrangement have been much discussed, there is limited literature review structuring both existing and new aspects of the debate, assessing (dis)advantages of arguments and interpretations. This paper both adds to the corpus of literature about the ASCM, as well as the Arrangement, and takes this corpus as the object of its analysis.

In recent decades, football has evolved from a purely sporting activity into a global economic phenomenon. Along with this metamorphosis, questions of corporate governance and compliance have come to the fore when it comes to the governance of (professional) football clubs. A good example is the consequences of, and efforts to prevent, criminal activities in the form of money laundering. In recent years, the risks of money laundering activities through the professional football sector have often been highlighted by, for example, European Union institutions. In Belgium, an alleged money laundering scandal in professional football led to legislative measures. This contribution considers the application of Belgium’s preventive anti-money laundering framework to professional football. It concludes that this legal framework is not a miracle solution to the problems facing the sector, and furthermore, the application of this framework raises several questions.

In digital markets, concentrated Big Data and analytical algorithms enable undertakings to predict each consumer’s willingness to pay with increasing accuracy and offer consumers personalized recommendations and tailored prices accordingly. In this context, concerns have arisen about whether and when AI-enabled price discrimination amounts to an abuse of dominance under competition law and would require a legal response. To address these concerns, this paper will analyze AI-enabled price discrimination from a comparative law and economics perspective. In economics, price discrimination is not always undesirable as it can increase static efficiency, and, on some occasions, it can promote dynamic efficiency and boost consumer welfare. Nevertheless, it may also lead to exclusionary and exploitative effects, especially once Tech Giants abuse their dominant positions in relevant markets. Since the protection of free competition and consumer welfare are objectives of competition law in China and the EU, competition law seems a proper instrument to step into digital markets to address these concerns. Indeed, the EU and China have established mixed regimes of competition law and other rules to tackle unfair and/or anti-competitive AI-enabled price discrimination. As such, AI-enabled price discrimination does not always require a competition law response and it requires competition authorities to make a trade-off between different considerations.

Tying has become a common practice in digital platforms. It may generate both pro-competitive effects and anti-competitive effects, which makes it difficult to distinguish between lawful and unlawful tying practices. The cases of Tencent and Android both involve tying conducts, but interestingly, the cases have different outcomes. This article explores reasons for these different case outcomes from a comparative law and economics perspective. By assessing the facts and legal rulings in Tencent and Android, we find that the different case outcomes result, on the one hand, from the different case facts, and on the other hand, from the different approaches used by the EU Commission and the Chinese Supreme People’s Court. The Court scores better in terms of ensuring legal certainty; nevertheless, it may face difficulties when it has to apply economic analysis. The Commission seemingly uses more economics, but the application is not full-fledged, as it disregards important case facts when assessing competition foreclosure, and employs asymmetric legal tests and evidence standards for anti/pro-competitive effects of tying. From a law and economics perspective, we provide suggestions for China and the EU, taking the recent Anti-Monopoly Guidelines on Platforms in China and the forthcoming Digital Markets Act in the EU into account.

Models of individual accountability for algorithms' actions fail when a human-algorithm association comes to be viewed as a collective actor. In some situations, human and algorithmic actions are so closely intertwined that there is no longer a linear connection between the emergent collectivity and the complex interactions of humans and algorithms. In such collective decision-making sequences, individual accountability can no longer be attributed. Therefore, a new perspective on human-algorithm associations that captures their emergent properties and organizational qualities is needed to develop appropriate models of collective accountability. This article seeks to answer a number of questions. How can the encounter between humans and algorithms within such a socio-technical configuration be adequately theorized? Can the configuration itself be understood as a hybrid collectivity? Can actions be attributed to the configuration as a personified collective actor? How will accountability be institutionalized for human-algorithm associations - in centralized or distributed collective forms?

We examined whether jurors who know that a prosecutor has a high conviction rate are more inclined to convict a defendant than jurors who know that the prosecutor has a low conviction rate. Using simulated criminal cases, we conducted two experimental studies with jury-eligible participants. Study 1 (N = 200) tested whether information about prior conviction rates (high or low) affected jurors’ estimations of the probability of guilt in the context of a robbery. Study 2 (N = 205) used another criminal trial context (murder) and another dependent variable (dichotomous guilty/not guilty verdicts). Study 2 also incorporated jury instructions on the reasonable doubt standard and included a control condition in which no information regarding the conviction rate was provided. In both studies, jurors in the high conviction rate treatment were significantly more likely to convict the accused than jurors in the low conviction rate treatment. When jurors are aware of a prosecutor's prior conviction rates, a self-reinforcing cycle may arise in which conviction rates determine conviction rates.

This article describes how the facts in social reality take an intermediate position between objective facts and purely subjective ‘facts’. In turn, these social facts can be subdivided into constructivist and non-constructivist facts. The defining difference is that non-constructivist facts are completely determined by an approximate consensus between the members of a social group, while constructivist facts are founded in such a consensus but can nevertheless be questioned. Ought fact are such constructivist facts. Because they are founded in social reality, a naturalistic theory of ought facts is attractive. Because constructivist facts are always open to questioning, we can explain why the facts in social reality may found ought facts but are nevertheless not the final word about them.

In discussing whether legal systems are necessarily coercive, legal philosophers usually appeal to thought experiments involving angels or other morally driven beings who need no coercion to organise their social lives. Such appeals have invited criticism. Critics have not only challenged the relevance of such thought experiments to our understanding of legal systems; they have also argued that, contrary to the intuitions of most legal philosophers, the ‘man on the Clapham Omnibus’ would not hold that there is law in a society of angels because the view that law is necessarily coercive ‘enjoys widespread support among laypersons’. This is obviously an empirical claim. Critics, however, never systematically polled the ‘man on the Clapham Omnibus’. We boarded that bus. This article discusses findings from five empirical studies on the relationship between law and coercion.

Private actors as non-institutional, and therefore often overlooked, participants in EU legal processes – A specific focus on their role as private regulators – Private actors such as companies, contracting parties and industry associations, play a pivotal regulatory role in the EU legal order – Classifying the existing legal research on private regulation – A legal-doctrinal approach towards private regulation also needed – Theoretical background of a novel legal-doctrinal perspective on private actors – Addressing the most pressing practical methodological challenges – Specific focus on the problem of accessibility and the difficulty of understanding and interpreting private regulation doctrinally

The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) has grown exponentially in recent years, which not only generates value but also creates risks. AI systems are characterised by their complexity, opacity and autonomy in operation. Now and in the foreseeable future, AI systems will be operating in a manner that is not fully autonomous. This signifies that providing appropriate incentives to the human parties involved is still of great importance in reducing AI-related harm. Therefore, liability rules should be adapted in such a way to provide the relevant parties with incentives to efficiently reduce the social costs of potential accidents. Relying on a law and economics approach, we address the theoretical question of what kind of liability rules should be applied to different parties along the value chain related to AI. In addition, we critically analyse the ongoing policy debates in the European Union, discussing the risk that European policymakers will fail to determine efficient liability rules with regard to different stakeholders.

Officially supported export credits matter greatly for private contracts: they provide the possibility of large export transactions and contracts which would otherwise not take place. It is therefore important to know how these instruments are regulated on an international level. The international regulation for public European export finance has three levels: rules set by the WTO to curb export subsidies, the Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits (which is a gentlemen’s agreement) and the EU state aid framework. Whilst the WTO framework has an official carve-out for the Arrangement, the EU state aid regime does not. Post-Covid, this article looks at the way to proceed with regulating official export credits, and how the different levels of regulation should be applied (and when), concluding that the Arrangement should be the core text of international regulation on export credits.

This comment discusses on how legal change can originate from society and the private sphere. It argues that Hesselink’s perspective is too strongly oriented on public sphere and ignores the societal sphere including its transformative potential. The comment centres the concept of private law institutions and institutional change that is a core element in both Katharina Pistor’s diagnosis on coding of capital in law and Martijn Hesselink’s related proposal to reform private law institutions through a comprehensive principle-oriented code. The comment first introduces the idea of legal institutionalism in Pistor and Hesselink to then add to it an additional perspective from a new institutional theory that identifies the transformative potential within the social institutions themselves. It is then argued that the law, rather than being in need of radical change, needs to be radical in being responsive to the societal institutions. The contribution concludes by outlining on the basis of three examples – contract, tort and private international law – how societally responsive private law institutions can look like.

‘Green recovery’ is one of the key themes of the stimulus packages implemented around the world in response to the Covid-19-related economic downturn. Recent research points to the potential role of regulation that becomes less stringent during recessions (ie countercyclical regulation) as an instrument to stimulate a quicker recovery. When this argument is put in the context of a green recovery, two key questions arise: should we implement countercyclical environmental regulation? If yes, what environmental instruments are better suited to stimulate the economy in periods of economic downturn? This article addresses these questions by discussing the risks of countercyclical environmental regulation and comparing the countercyclical effects of two critical environmental instruments: carbon taxes and cap-and-trade. The article argues that policymakers should be cautious in implementing countercyclical environmental regulation because the benefits of this practice are uncertain and it entails various risks. The article also challenges the belief common among academics and policymakers that cap-and-trade is inherently more countercyclical than carbon taxes by showing that whether this is true depends on the design of these instruments and other contingent factors.

Summary This article focuses on the references (allegations) made by the lawyers in a selected number of cases to Roman and customary law as well as to court decisions when arguing their case. The analysis focuses on three similar civil litigation records from the Court of Friesland from 1716, 1718 and 1720. Network analysis was used to examine whether certain sources were more dominant (i.e. more central) in the network than others and to explore the relationship between the references. The lawyers in the three cases from the Court of Friesland appear to have used some references in common when arguing whether security rights (i.e. mortgages) included a right of pursuit and whether the auctioneer could recover the object if the buyer failed to pay.

Mediation in the context of the enforcement of judgments and other enforceable documents should be distinguished from the broader and more general question of whether or not enforcement agents may serve as mediators. In Europe, there are some jurisdictions where enforcement agents may indeed serve as mediators. This does not necessarily mean that in these jurisdictions enforcement agents use mediation in ongoing enforcement procedures executed under their supervision (the latter is qualified as ‘post-judicial mediation’ or ‘participatory enforcement’). In actual fact, examples of post-judicial mediation are scarce or non-existent even though they are discussed in literature. As will be shown in the present contribution, ‘post-judicial mediation’ is often not conceived as mediation in the strict sense (i.e. the bringing about of an amicable settlement under the guidance of a neutral mediator), but as a series of activities aimed at providing efficient and effective enforcement services. It is often better to refer to ‘post-judicial mediation’ as ‘participator enforcement’ or ‘amicable enforcement’. Best practices in participatory enforcement are the central topic of the present contribution.

Statutory dominant firms, different from dominant firms that have gained their market power through competition on the merits, have derived their market position from choices made by the state. From an economic perspective, tying by this kind of firm typically generates significant anti-competitive effects that are likely to outweigh the possible pro-competitive effects. Both in China and the EU, such tying practices have frequently taken place. Nevertheless, the economic findings have not been fully reflected in competition provisions and competition practice in these two jurisdictions. This may lead to error costs and enforcement costs, which is detrimental to consumer welfare. It is thus important for competition authorities and courts to carefully consider the economic findings, while taking into account also the principles of proportionality and legal certainty. To enhance the effectiveness of competition law, this study proposes potential ways of applying a differentiated (stricter) scrutiny of tying by statutory dominant firms to reduce error costs and enforcement costs.

In a world of rising long-term risks and their ensuing syndromes, the mitigation and financing of long-term risks are therefore arguably some of the most critical issues facing society. However, long-term thinking involving future generations draws limited attention in current political and social systems. Private insurance has received increased attention due to its expert role in risk management and its risk transfer mechanisms, and it has played an important role in dealing with some types of long-term risk, such as floods and earthquakes. Increasingly, insurance also contributes to disaster mitigation through regulating the conduct of policyholders by creating incentives for policyholders to counter short-termism and invest in reduction measures regarding long-term risks. In addition, it has been shown that supply-side problems and behavioural anomalies make it difficult to insure against long-term risks. Innovative long-term insurance solutions and a combination of public and private partnerships are proposed to overcome these restrictions.

Insurance can, as has clearly been indicated in the literature, play an important role in dealing with catastrophe risks, not only as a compensation mechanism but also as a mechanism to influence the behaviour of the insured. It is the concept known as ‘insurance as governance’. However, we argue that there are limited possibilities for this role as far as the insurance of pandemics is concerned. The traditional technical tools, such as risk-based pricing, are difficult to apply. In addition, there may, ab initio, be serious problems in insuring pandemics within one of the main conditions of insurability (controlling moral hazard through an effective risk differentiation). One remedy that is traditionally applied, more particularly for natural catastrophes, is mandatory coverage. Furthermore, the capacity problem might potentially be solved through a multilayered approach in which, in addition to insurance and reinsurance, the government could also take up a role as reinsurer of last resort. That would also have the major advantage of stimulating market solution (and potentially providing incentives for the mitigation of damages), which clearly fails in a model where the government simply bails out operators. Finally, one important regulatory intervention is that insurers should be better informed than was apparently the case during the last pandemic about exactly which type of risks are covered and which are not.

Der vorliegende Beitrag betrachtet die Regulierung transnationaler Lieferketten durch das LkSG aus vertraglicher Perspektive. Dabei wird zunächst das Konzept der Lieferkette privatrechtlich eingeordnet und in Bezug zur Institution des Vertrags gesetzt. Sodann wird diskutiert, wie sich die im LkSG – sowie einer möglicherweise bald verabschiedeten europäischen Richtlinie – niederlegten unternehmerischen Sorgfaltspflichten zum Lieferkettenvertrag verhalten. Hierzu wird gezeigt, dass die Pflichten im LkSG so ausgestaltet sind, dass der Lieferkettenvertrag mit Blick auf den Umweltschutz und die Einhaltung von Menschenrechten verstärkt durch die einzelnen großen Unternehmen gesteuert wird. Dieses Verständnis der Lieferkettenregulierung hat seinen Ursprung in dem unternehmenszentrierten Verantwortungskonzept der VN-Leitprinzipien für Wirtschaft und Menschenrechte und wird durch die nationalen Sorgfaltspflichtengesetze in ein rechtliches Pflichtenprogramm übersetzt. Im LkSG ist dies so ausgestaltet, dass Unternehmen Pflichten hinsichtlich der Vertragsgestaltung und der Überprüfung ihrer Beschaffungspraktiken als Teil ihrer Sorgfaltspflichten treffen. Diese werden dann durch die Pflicht zu Weitergabeklauseln entlang der Lieferkette perpetuiert. In einem letzten Teil diskutiert der Beitrag kursorisch einige weitere europäische Entwicklungen, die auf andere vertragliche Regulierungsansätze hindeuten und dabei andere Akteure bei der vertraglichen Gestaltung von Lieferkettenverträgen in den Blick nehmen. Hierzu zählt insbesondere die Standardisierung durch Modellvertragsklauseln, die Debatte um die Einbindung von Interessengruppen und Betroffenen in die Entwicklung von Risikomanagement und Vertragsgestaltung sowie der gesetzliche Zugriff auf Lieferkettenverträge durch das unlautere Wettbewerbsrecht.

Het BW van 1992 was dertig jaar oud in 2022. Tijd voor gedenken, maar ook vooruitdenken. Dit boek doet allebei. Hoe heeft dat BW de tijd doorstaan? Denk aan de ontwikkelingen in de wereld om ons heen, in de wetenschap, in de maatschappij en in ons Koninkrijk. En hoe heeft de veranderende plaats van ons land binnen bijvoorbeeld de Europese Unie onze blik op het BW veranderd, verruimd, verlegd en verrijkt? En waar gaan we naartoe met de dertigjarige in een snel veranderende wereld? Een vooruitgedenkboek dus.

For a long period, China's environmental law has been dubbed a ‘paper tiger’ due to the truism that China's environmental legislation is plentiful but not properly enforced. During the past few years, there have been impressive strides made by Chinese policymakers to address the non-compliance and weak enforcement of China's environmental law. As a result, China has bolstered a toolbox approach of environmental law enforcement, which provides law enforcers with a variety of instruments to induce compliance. This article provides a comprehensive and dynamic analysis of the available mix of (public) enforcement instruments and their relative importance under the current enforcement regime of China's environmental law by taking the recent legal and policy developments into account. More particularly, we assess the de facto application of the smart mix of administrative and criminal enforcement tools in China, by conducting a law and economic analysis on the public enforcement data of China's environmental law between 2012 and 2020.

Insurance transfers and spreads risk, including climate change risk. It can provide direct financial protection to those affected by climate change. It has received attention for its regulatory function in influencing policyholder behaviour. This is sometimes called ‘insurance as governance’, a form of private contractual regulation. This article examines the functions and limits of insurance in climate-related compensation and in governing complex climate-related risks by describing the variable performance of such insurance schemes in China. We show that insurance can perform a useful regulatory function in adaptation to climate change. However, we equally make clear that insurance can play this role only if an appropriate regulatory framework is provided. The case of China illustrates how the very lack of such a regulatory framework limits the role that insurers can play in climate change adaptation.

We study a land-titling reform implemented as a randomized control trial to isolate its effects on litigation. The reform consisted of demarcating land parcels, registering existing customary rights, and granting additional legal protection to right holders. Ten years after implementation, the reform doubled the likelihood of households experiencing land-related litigation, but disputes did not escalate into more frequent violent episodes. We suggest that this increase in litigation reflects the complementarity of land titling by registration and by judicial procedures aimed at further clarifying property rights, as the reform registered titles to all parcels but left many titles subject to adverse claims. This raised the demand for complementary litigation aimed at perfecting titles for low-value parcels that, under the customary system, were optimal to keep un-clarified. Consistent with this explanation, we find that the increase in litigation took place among households that plausibly own land of lower value.

Het Verdrag betreffende de werking van de Europese Unie kent aan iedere onderdaan van een van de lidstaten van de Europese Unie de status van EU-burgerschap toe (art. 20 VWEU). Nationaliteit is daarom een voorwaarde voor individuen om van de status als EU-burger gebruik te kunnen maken en van de rechten die aan het EU-burgerschap verbonden zijn. Het gaat dan om het vrije verkeer binnen de EU (art. 21 VWEU), maar ook onder andere actief en passief kiesrecht voor gemeentelijke verkiezingen in een gastlidstaat. Hoewel uitsluitend lidstaten bevoegd zijn om de nationaliteit toe te kennen en in te trekken, moeten dergelijke besluiten en nationaliteitsregelingen wel voldoen aan de eisen die het EU-recht daaraan stelt, met name aan het evenredigheidsbeginsel. In de zaak JY staat intrekking van het voornemen om nationaliteit toe te kennen centraal. Het gaat in deze zaak dus niet om het intrekken van een toegekende nationaliteit, maar wel om het vertrouwen dat de betreffende nationaliteit zou worden toegekend.HvJ 18 januari 2022, C-118/20, ECLI:EU:C:2022:34 (JY/Wiener Landesregierung).

The Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) in China allows the responsible authority for merger control to consider not only the competition interest but also other public interest reasons when it reviews a takeover or merger. Where the responsible authority considers that the benefits of a takeover or merger to the public interest outweigh the harms to competition, it may ‘exempt’ the transaction. This ‘public interest exemption’ has never been formally applied since the introduction of the law in 2008. One explanation for this can be found in the ambiguity of the law: there are no legal provisions that clarify the public interest considerations. A second explanation is that China did not establish a separate review procedure for this public interest exemption. In practice, some approval decisions made by the enforcement authority led to confusion, as it was unclear whether the transactions were ‘exempted’ for public interest reasons or for industrial policies. This article reflects on the role of the public interest exemption in China. By drawing lessons from the past and examining the public interest exemption regime in Germany, it aims to provide suggestions for future reforms, against the background of the promulgation of the Amendment to the AML in 2022.

Toegangstickets voor culturele, sport- en andere evenementen worden regelmatig doorverkocht voor prijzen die aanzienlijk hoger zijn dan de oorspronkelijke aankoopprijs. In het Nederlandse parlement is sinds 2008 herhaaldelijk gediscussieerd over de invoering van een wet die deze praktijk aan banden legt. De besluitvorming lijkt steeds vast te lopen op dezelfde argumenten. In België is in 2013 zo’n wet ingevoerd. De argumenten waarop de Nederlandse wetgever vastloopt, zijn door de Belgische wetgever keurig terzijde geschoven. Kan Nederland iets leren van België?

This paper focuses on the regulation of football agents in Europe by providing a comparative law and economics analysis. The paper starts by laying out a theoretical framework where the question is posed as to what reasons could support the need to regulate the activities of football agents. After having established that both information asymmetries and negative externalities could be a serious problem that merit regulation of some kind, the paper asks which type of regulation might be advanced by distinguishing between licensing, certification and conduct regulation. The difference between public and private regulation is equally discussed from an economic perspective. On the back of this theoretical framework, the paper turns to the (private) regulations adopted by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), explaining the way in which these regulations have evolved and focusing on the most recent changes introduced by the FIFA Regulations on Working with intermediaries (RWI) of 2015, which have been the subject of serious criticism in the literature. We then move to a more detailed discussion of the regulation of the activities of football agents in four selected European countries (Belgium, England, France and Italy), explaining the nature of the regulation (private by a football association or public regulation), the requirements that the agents have to meet and the way in which the system is functioning in practice. As this comparative analysis shows, there exist substantial differences between these European countries as far as the key features of the regulation in question are concerned. The paper equally provides a critical comparison of the four European countries in the light of the theoretical framework and asks whether the differences identified would merit harmonization at the European level. As yet there has been little intervention from the EU in this domain, but there have been increasing calls for such intervention, more particularly from the European Parliament for a regulation of players’ agents. The paper is the first of its kind to provide a critical law and economics analysis in a comparative perspective of the regulation of football agents in Europe.

This article attempts to answer the question whether the distinction between public and private companies is still needed or whether it is outdated. The question will be answered from an EU perspective, while taking the Dutch legal system as a leading example. In the Netherlands, there was a huge time-gap between the introduction of the public company in 1811 and the introduction of the private company in 1971, 160 years later. This seems to justify the question whether we needed the private company at all. Public company, private company, minimum capital requirement, capital maintenance rules, bearer shares, registered shares

This contribution calls for a fundamental rethinking of the foundation of the duty of corporate citizenship. The benefits enjoyed by a legal person, in particular when used as a vehicle to run a listed corporation, come with obligations, not because of some ethical responsibility or a misunderstood noblesse oblige, but because promoting the societal interest is inherent to the purpose of the corporation. Whoever wishes to use the legal person as a vehicle for business activities, with all its associated advantages, thereby also submits to the partly public character of that legal status and thus to the pursuit of public goals. This provides a deeper foundation for corporate social responsibility than the notion of corporate interest, which is strongly related to the actual day-to-day actions of the company and not to the basis for its existence. It is also argued that this should lead to specific binding standards of what corporate citizenship entails. To the extent that such standards cannot be made at the European level, the role of national regulation, and thus of the State, must necessarily increase to protect citizens from the excesses of global capitalism.

his chapter analyses the European and Chinese legal regimes dealing with marine oil pollution compensation from a comparative and economic perspective. Historically, EU countries have always been playing an active role in promoting higher standards of compensation as they were often victims of major oil spills. The legal regime in EU countries in compensating marine oil pollution victims is mainly in line with the international conventions, which is based on strict liability with an upper limit on the amount of compensation, plus a compulsory financial guarantee, and a compensation fund. Whereas in China, the compensation regime is only implementing the first layer of the international (and thus EU) regime, which is strict liability, limitation of liability, compulsory insurance. As for the compensation fund, China did not join the international fund as the EU countries do, but it has adopted a domestic fund. The efficiencies and effectiveness of these two regimes are thus analysed in this chapter through the use of economic analysis of law.

Nowhere in Europe are disputants forced to settle their civil or commercial disputes by way of mediation or any other form of alternative dispute resolution. Settlement is also completely voluntary in light of the fundamental right of access to court of Art. 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights. This does not, however, mean that potential disputants may not be requested to attempt to settle their case before going to court, for example, by way of mediation, especially if strict time limits are observed for such procedure. In some European jurisdictions, attempting mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution before court action is initiated is mandatory, at least in certain cases. The present contribution will focus on such preliminary mandatory mediation attempts in a selection of jurisdictions.

This book maps the newly-amended Belgian ‘Preventative Anti-Money Laundering Law’ and its application to the professional football sector in Belgium, examining the goals it is designed to achieve, its primary legal implications for the football sector, and its likely effects. In so doing, this exploratory study aims to provide a preliminary evaluation of the application of the anti-money laundering framework to the sector of professional football in Belgium.

With Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) technologies, individuals use electronic ‘wallets’ to collect information (‘credentials’) from various parties about themselves and present this information to (possibly other) parties. The context in which the information is presented, or used, is often different from the context in which a credential with this information is created and issued. In this paper, we illustrate this with financial guardianship, which is created by a judge in an official court procedure and which gives the guardian rights and duties that can or need to be invoked vis-a-vis a party not being the court. In this illustration, we explore (i) the application of SSI in the context of financial guardianship, (ii) what is characteristic about the gap between the practical (legal) and technical perspective, and (iii) what needs to be done to overcome the challenges. We observe gaps between the legal and technical reality. We offer insights into how to advance the application of SSI in the context of financial guardianship, and possibly beyond, which may be taken up in future research.

There are many issues around rules and related concepts. By developing a theory about the existence of social reality, this article aims to address these issues by discussing: the relation between rules and norms, the difference between deontic normativity and the normativity of reason, the (im)possibility of prescriptive rules, two kinds of constitutive rules, and the function of rules as constraints on possible worlds.

Deze bijdrage betreft de vraag of oplegging door de civiele rechter van de sanctie punitive damages moetworden aangemerkt als criminal charge in de zin van artikel 6 EVRM. In dat geval zijn niet alleen de algemene waarborgen van lid 1, maar ook de strafrechtelijke waarborgen van lid 2 en 3 van toepassing. Dit heeft gevolgen voor het civiele proces en voor de toekomst van punitive damages in continentaal Europa. Ter beantwoording van deze vraag zal relevante rechtspraak van het EHRM aan bod komen, alsmede de wijze waarop het recht op een eerlijk proces in het Amerikaanse punitive damages recht wordt ingevuld.

Rules of civil procedure reflect the state’s attitude to balancing competing interests of the litigants and the wider public interest. While litigants have an interest in protecting their autonomy in the conduct of litigation, there is a greater public interest in ensuring that litigation is conducted in an efficient, cost-effective and time-saving manner. It is for this purpose that the adversarial system came to be modified with some elements of the inquisitorial system, giving rise to case management whereby the judge takes an active part in regulating the litigation process. An important aspect of case management is identifying issues or disputes that can more appropriately be settled by less formal methods of dispute resolution. Where alternative dispute resolution is not favoured, the judge retains case management powers throughout the litigation process. This article presents an overview of the “Model European Rules of Civil Procedure” of the European Law Institute and UNIDROIT that are intended to guide member states of the European Union. The article concludes that the Model European Rules of Civil Procedure represent the best practice in civil litigation, the adoption of which by member states of the European Union will to a great extent harmonise litigation procedure throughout the European Union, although the Model European Rules may not be readily embraced by all the states.

The assumption that coercion is largely responsible for our legal systems’ efficacy is a common one. I argue that this assumption is false. But i do so indirectly, by objecting to a thesis i call “(compliance),” which holds that most citizens comply with most legal mandates most of the time at least partly in virtue of being motivated by legal systems’ threats of sanctions and other unwelcome consequences. The relationship between (compliance) and the efficacy of legal systems is explained in sect. 2. There i also show that (compliance) must be rejected for it relies on unsubstantiated empirical assumptions. In sect. 3, i claim that an alternative and more refined formulation of (compliance) also lacks adequate support. I conclude with a few general remarks about the centrality of coercion in our thought and talk about legal systems.keywordscoercioncomplianceobedienceefficacypractical differencegeneral jurisprudence.