Business Commons^™

How We Should Have Tried Monsignor Lynn, J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Sex Abuse, Priests, And Corporate Conspiracy, J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Where Are The Prosecutions For Corporate Conspiracy?, J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Jpmorgan’S Witness And The Holes In Corporate Criminal Law, J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Corporate Conspiracy Charges For The Financial Crisis, J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

We Want To Play Too, Peter J. Titlebaum, Kate Brennan, Tracy Chynoweth

Peter J. Titlebaum

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that persons with disabilities be integrated to the maximum extent possible, and that these persons cannot be excluded from participation. Intramural directors need to be proactive in this area. The benefits of intramural sports are vast, and they help many students become part of the college community. Forming an alliance with the Disability Services on campus, the first step, is the most vital aspect of making these programs successful. It is important to remember the difference between what can be done and what must be done. Even with the best of intentions, it …

Building Prohibited Transaction Chinese Walls For Retirement Plan Investment Structures, David Randall Jenkins

David Randall Jenkins

Knowing how to structure client career revising strategies by funding business ventures with extant retirement plan assets is an important transaction structuring tool for today’s professional. Enabling both account holder compensation and personal guaranties of enterprise debt appears to be a formidable undertaking in today’s decisional law climate. The key to empowering such client objectives lies in understanding how retirement plan management and investment risk diversification policy compliance, together with properly invoked plan asset rule exceptions, erect Prohibited Transaction Chinese Walls and enable (self-dealing activity: incidental benefit) transitions.

Virtuous Billing, Nancy B. Rapoport, Randy D. Gordon

Nancy B. Rapoport

Aristotle tells us, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that we become ethical by building good habits and we become unethical by building bad habits: “excellence of character results from habit, whence it has acquired its name (êthikê) by a slight modification of the word ethos (habit).” Excellence of character comes from following the right habits. Thinking of ethics as habit-forming may sound unusual to the modern mind, but not to Aristotle or the medieval thinkers who grew up in his long shadow. “Habit” in Greek is “ethos,” from which we get our modern word, “ethical.” In Latin, habits are moralis, which …

Bad Math: How Non-Union Employees Are Unconstitutionally Compelled To Subsidize Political Speech, Shirley V. Svorny, Melanie S. Williams

Melanie S. Williams

Employees’ right to organize and be represented by unions is in tension with the right of other employees not to join organizations as a condition of employment. Current law permits unions to assess agency fees from represented non-members, reflecting the cost of representational activities (for example, contract negotiation). Unions may not, however, assess non-members for the cost of political activities, since this would infringe on the constitutional rights of such employees by requiring them to subsidize political speech. The method of calculating agency fees, however, has been almost uniformly mishandled, resulting in overcharging non-union members. In this paper, we examine …

En Torno A La Relevancia Jurídica De Una Estrategia Empresarial Consolidada Y Subyacente: La Obsolescencia Programada (About The Juridical Relevance Of An Underlying And Consolidated Business Strategy: The Planned Obsolescence), Jesús A. Soto

Jesús Alfonso Soto Pineda

El artículo presenta la obsolescencia programada, como estrategia empresarial, basada en el diseño, planificación, proyección y control de la vida útil de los productos, con el objetivo de dinamizar la demanda y estimular el consumo; impulsando a los particulares a adquirir tras la pérdida de funcionalidad de sus bienes o su caducidad. Exponiendo igualmente los casos de mayor trascendencia que han llevado tal estrategia hasta nuestros días, haciendo hincapié en el sector tecnológico y en uno de sus exponentes de más notoriedad, la empresa multinacional norteamericana Apple. Deslindando a su vez, los caracteres que le otorgan relevancia ética a la …

Aim Investment Report 2015: Trends And Policy Challenges, Karl P. Sauvant

Karl P. Sauvant

In the foreign-direct-investment world, the year 2014 was characterized by policy discussions, especially about the nature of the international investment law and policy regime, its investor-state dispute-settlement mechanism, the role of bilateral investment treaties, and the question of rules for state-owned enterprises. This discussion took place against the backdrop of a decline in world FDI flows by multinational enterprises and the growing attractiveness of emerging markets as host countries and the further rise of outward FDI from these countries.

Law Vs. Science: Should Law As A Core Subject Be Eliminated At The U.S. Armed Services Academies In Favor Of More Relevant Stem Courses?, Gregory M. Huckabee

gregory m huckabee

Law vs. Science: Should law as a core subject be eliminated at the U.S. Armed Services Academies in favor of more relevant STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) courses? As recent cyberterror events have unfolded, more STEM knowledge is needed in the armed forces. STEM courses are on the march for inclusion in greater numbers in academy core curriculums. In order for new STEM courses to join the academic heart of academy learning, predecessor courses must be reviewed for relevancy, significance, and materiality. One core course in common at all three military academies is law. Yet few core curriculums can absorb …

What Determines M&A Legal And Financial Advisors' Competitiveness In An International Financial Centre: Using China's Going Out Policy As A Natural Experiment, Bryane Michael

Bryane Michael (bryane.michael@stcatz.ox.ac.uk)

How can legal and financial advisors compete in the global market for M&A mandates? In this presentation, we review the arguments made in our paper.

Work Made For Hire – Analyzing The Multifactor Balancing Test, Ryan G. Vacca

Ryan G. Vacca

Authorship, and hence, initial ownership of copyrighted works is oftentimes controlled by the 1976 Copyright Act’s work made for hire doctrine. This doctrine states that works created by employees within the scope of their employment result in the employer owning the copyright. One key determination in this analysis is whether the hired party is an employee or independent contractor. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court, in CCNV v. Reid, answered the question of how employees are distinguished from independent contractors by setting forth a list of factors courts should consider. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not give further guidance on …

All-Units Discounts As A Partial Foreclosure Device, Yong Chao, Guofu Tan

Yong Chao

All-units discounts (AUD) are pricing schemes that lower a buyer’s marginal price on every unit purchased when the buyer’s purchase exceeds or is equal to a pre-specified threshold. The AUD and related conditional rebates are commonly used in both final-goods and intermediate-goods markets. Although the existing literature has thus far focused on interpreting the AUD as a price discrimination tool, investment incentive program, or rent-shifting instrument, the antitrust concerns on the AUD and related conditional rebates are often their plausible exclusionary effects.

In this article, we investigate strategic effects of volume-threshold based AUD used by a dominant firm in the …

Patent Demands And Initial Public Offerings, Robin C. Feldman, Evan Frondorf

Robin C Feldman

Do Patent Licensing Demands Mean Innovation?, Robin C. Feldman, Mark A. Lemley

Robin C Feldman

A Brief Review Of New Threats And Countermeasures In Digital Crime And Cyber Terrorism, Maurice Dawson

Maurice Dawson

Cyber security is becoming the cornerstone of national security policies in many countries around the world as it is an interest to many stakeholders, including utilities, regulators, energy markets, government entities, and even those that wish to exploit the cyber infrastructure. Cyber warfare is quickly becoming the method of warfare and the tool of military strategists. Additionally, it is has become a tool for governments to aid or exploit for their own personal benefits. For cyber terrorists there has been an overwhelmingly abundance of new tools and technologies available that have allowed criminal acts to occur virtually anywhere in the …

Food Loss And Waste In The European Union: A New Challenge For The Food Law?, Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

Food is lost or wasted throughout the supply chain, from initial agricultural production down to final household consumption. In the European Union (EU) food is to a significant extent wasted at the consumption stage, meaning that it is discarded even if it is still suitable for human consumption. Significant losses also occur early in the food supply chains. In low-income countries food is lost mostly during the early and middle stages of the food supply chain; much less food is wasted at the consumer level. The article highlights the losses occurring along the entire food chain, and makes assessments of …

The Impact Of The Future Trade Secrets Directive On The Food Sector, Luis González Vaqué, Isabel Segura Roda

Luis González Vaqué

Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how [COM(2013) 813 final de 28 November 2013]. We have explicitly chosen to analyse the proposal’s impact because, with regard to food production, we consider that careful consideration must be given to the extent to which the proposal affects areas such as information about food composition, the functioning of rapid alert systems, methods of traceability, the application of the precautionary principle, and different means of document access. We also believe it is important to acknowledge the intangible nature of the know-how used in …

Food Legislation: The “Teekanne” Case Of 4 June 2015, Luis González Vaqué, Sara Aparicio Hill, Sebastián Romero Melchor

Luis González Vaqué

Articles 2(1)(a)(i) and 3(1)(2) of Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 March 2000 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs, as amended by Regulation (EC) No 596/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009, must be interpreted as precluding the labelling of a foodstuff and methods used for the labelling from giving the impression, by means of the appearance, description or pictorial representation of a particular ingredient, that that ingredient is present, even though it is not …

En El Do De La Unión Europea: Registro De Denominaciones De Origen Protegidas, Indicaciones Geográficas Protegidas, Etc. [2015/2], Luis González Vaqué, Cristina Vidreras Pérez

Luis González Vaqué

No abstract provided.

Secrets D'Affaires: L'Urgente Nécessité D'Adopter Une Directive Face A L'Inefficacité De L'Application De L'Accord Sur Les Adpic, Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

In November 2013, the Commission proposed a draft directive that will align existing laws against the misappropriation of trade secrets across the EU.

The relevant laws of some Member States do not provide for a legal definition of what a trade secret is. The existing remedies available are also inconsistent, and at times ineffective.

The proposal harmonises the definition of trade secrets in accordance with existing internationally binding standards. It also defines the relevant forms of misappropriation and clarifies that reverse engineering and parallel innovation must be guaranteed, given that trade secrets are not a form of exclusive intellectual property …

Lemons On The Edge Of The Internet: The Importance Of Transparency For Broadband Network Quality, Reza Rajabiun, Catherine Middleton

Reza Rajabiun

Network performance measurements from OECD countries between 2007 and 2012 document a significant increase in the variability of broadband infrastructure quality, which helps explain growing demand for technologies and policies that counteract information asymmetries between network operators and end users. A cross-country analysis documents the negative association between quality uncertainty and variations in digital infrastructure quality. The analysis suggests public policies and business models that promote market transparency can enhance the efficiency of the broadband access market on the edge of the internet and stimulate incentives for the diffusion of next generation platforms.