Contracts Commons^™

Governing Land Investments: Do Governments Have Legal Support Gaps?, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In the wave of efforts to encourage and support more “responsible” land investments, one aspect has been largely overlooked: are governments equipped with the legal and technical support needed to effectively negotiate and conclude investment contracts that lead to responsible outcomes?

CCSI researched how host governments access legal support in the planning, negotiation, and monitoring of land investments, with a view to better understanding where legal support gaps for governments exist, and how these can be addressed by governments themselves, as well as by donors, support providers and investors.

By scrutinizing “legal support gaps,” CCSI sought to identify possible weak …

China's Anti-Corruption Crackdown And The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Daniel C.K. Chow

Texas A&M Law Review

China’s highly publicized crackdown on corruption may affect the type and number of cases in China that arise under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), but it should not be assumed that the crackdown will necessarily lead to fewer FCPA prosecutions. Although there is some overlap of the goals of China’s corruption crackdown and the goals of the FCPA, China’s crackdown also serves important goals of the ruling Communist Party. The main goal of the current crackdown is to reinforce the Party’s power by targeting enemies and rivals of the current leadership. The crackdown is not aimed at prohibiting bribes …

Governing Land Investments: Do Governments Have Legal Support Gaps?, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In the wave of efforts to encourage and support more “responsible” land investments, one aspect has been largely overlooked: are governments equipped with the legal and technical support needed to effectively negotiate and conclude investment contracts that lead to responsible outcomes?

CCSI researched how host governments access legal support in the planning, negotiation, and monitoring of land investments, with a view to better understanding where legal support gaps for governments exist, and how these can be addressed by governments themselves, as well as by donors, support providers and investors.

By scrutinizing “legal support gaps,” CCSI sought to identify possible weak …

Tax Compliance In A Decentralizing Economy, Manoj Viswanathan

Georgia State University Law Review

Tax compliance in the United States has long relied on information from centralized intermediaries—the financial institutions,employers, and brokers that help ensure income is reported and taxes are paid. Yet while the IRS remains tied to these centralized entities,consumers and businesses are not. New technologies, such as sharing economy platforms (companies such as Airbnb, Uber, and Instacart)and the blockchain (the platform on which various cryptocurrencies are based) are providing new, decentralized options for exchanging goods and services.

Without legislative and agency intervention, these technologies pose a critical threat to the reporting system underlying domestic and international tax compliance. Until now, legal …

The Application Of The United Nations Convention On Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods Uniformity Interpretation Principle In U.S., Yuqing Nie

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (hereinafter: CISG) plays an increasingly important role in international sale of goods. However, the CISG is not always correctly applied, especially one of its basic principles – the uniform interpretation principle stated in its Article 7(1), which is usually ignored or incorrectly applied in its contracting States.

The CISG requires high-level uniformity, which requires the CISG to be applied autonomously if there involves parties from two CISG contracting States and the contract governing the transaction has no clause specifying other law as the governing law. Additionally, the CISG …

Crossing Troubled Waters: Joining Non-Signatories In Maritime Arbitration - The Co-Optation And Containment Of Consent In United States And British Law, Glenys P. Spence

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Alexa, Who Owns My Pillow Talk? Contracting, Collaterizing, And Monetizing Consumer Privacy Through Voice-Captured Personal Data, Anne Logsdon Smith

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

With over one-fourth of households in the U.S. alone now using voice-activated digital assistant devices such as Amazon’s Echo (better known as “Alexa”) and Google’s Home, companies are recording and transmitting record volumes of voice data from the privacy of people’s homes to servers across the globe. These devices capture conversations about everything from online shopping to food preferences to entertainment recommendations to bedtime stories, and even phone and appliance use. With “Big Data” and business analytics expected to be a $203 billion-plus industry by 2020, companies are racing to acquire and leverage consumer data by selling it, licensing it, …

The Price Of Law: The Case Of The Eurozone's Collective Action Clauses, Elena Carletti, Paolo Colla, Mitu Gulati, Steven Ongena

Faculty Scholarship

Do markets value contract protections? And does the quality of a legal system affect such valuations? To answer these questions we exploit a unique experiment whereby, after January 1, 2013, newly issued sovereign bonds of Eurozone countries under domestic law had to include Collective Action Clauses (CACs) specifying the minimum vote needed to modify payment terms. We find that CAC bonds trade at lower yields than otherwise similar no-CAC bonds; and that the quality of the legal system matters for this differential. Hence, markets appear to see CACs as providing protection against the legal risk embedded in domestic-law sovereign bonds.

Courts As Information Intermediaries: A Case Study Of Sovereign Debt Disputes, Sadie Blanchard

Journal Articles

When foreign sovereigns default on their debt, creditors sometimes sue them. These creditors are sophisticated actors, and they sue even though courts can do little to force a sovereign to satisfy a judgment. Why do they sue? This Article argues that courts serve as information intermediaries that strengthen reputational enforcement in the international sovereign debt market. It shows, through a case study of sovereign debt defaults and disputes, three ways in which courts play this role. First, in hard cases, courts clarify reputational signals by publicly determining whether breach occurred. Second, through discovery and fact finding, they mitigate information asymmetries …

Palm Papers, Nicole Rothwell

Capstones

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) came into possession of a secret dataset of property owners of the Palm Islands, the elite high-end artificial islands on the coast of Dubai.

With over 250 neighborhoods on Dubai’s waterfront, a group of journalists around the world has been investigating who these individuals are that can afford the posh and pricey real estate. While most fall into the uber-rich category, some also have corrupt to criminal backgrounds leading to questions such as if the Palm Islands are truly a real-estate paradise, or instead a refuge for the corrupt.

The task for …

Sovereign Debt Restructuring And English Governing Law, Steven L. Schwarcz

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The problem of sovereign indebtedness is becoming a worldwide crisis because nations, unlike individuals and corporations, lack access to bankruptcy laws to restructure unsustainable debt. Decades of international efforts to solve this problem through contracting and attempted treaty-making have failed to provide an adequate debt-restructuring framework. A significant amount of outstanding sovereign debt is governed, however, by English law. This Article argues that the U.K. Parliament has the extraordinary power to help solve the problem of unsustainable country debt by changing English law to facilitate fair and consensual debt restructuring. This Article also proposes modifications to English law that Parliament …

At The Intersection Of Land Grievances And Legal Liability: The Need To Reconsider Contract Rights And Expectations At The Supranational Level, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

This Article explores how host governments’ legal obligations can affect or constrain their ability to address “land grievances,” which are defined as concerns raised by local individuals or communities in response to negative impacts of land-based investments. Obligations under international investment law, international human rights law, and investor-state contracts can be in tension or can directly conflict with one another, creating complexity for governments seeking to respond to land grievances. To explore the legal considerations that governments must navigate in this context, this Article considers several options that governments could pursue to respond to land grievances. In all of the …

Do We Need A Global Commercial Code?, Michael Joachim Bonell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) first launched the idea of preparing a code of inter- national trade law. In 1970, the Secretariat of UNIDROIT submitted a note to the newly established United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in justification of such an initiative and indicated some of the salient features of the project. What was proposed was a veritable code in the continental sense. The proposed code included two parts: part one dealing with the law of obligations generally, and part two relating to specific kinds of commercial transactions. However, the “Progressive codification …

Mechanisms For Consultation And Free, Prior And Informed Consent In The Negotiation Of Investment Contracts, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Investor-state contracts are regularly used in low-and middle-income countries to grant concessions for land-based investments, such as agricultural or forestry projects. These contracts are rarely negotiated in the presence of, or with meaningful input from, the people who risk being adversely affected by the project. This has serious implications for requirements for meaningful consultation, and, where applicable, free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), and is particularly important in situations in which investor-state contracts grant the investor rights to lands or resources over which the community has legitimate claims.

The paper explores how consultation and FPIC processes can be integrated into …

The New Era Of Doing Business With Iran: Iran’S International Commercial Transactions And Global Security, John Changiz Vafai

Pace International Law Review

On January 17, 2016, in a statement following his signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, President Obama addressed that country’s people, stating that “yours is a great civilization, with a vibrant culture that has so much to contribute to the world – in commerce, and in science and the arts.” While the former U.S. President’s evaluation of the Iranian people’s greatness is indisputable, there are questions concerning doing business with Iran which transcend conventional legal issues and commercial problems.

Given the juxtaposition of Iran’s duopolistic government structure and ideologically oriented decision-making processes, questions arise as …

Guide To Land Contracts: Forestry Projects, International Senior Lawyers Project, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Agricultural investment contracts and forestry projects can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. To assist non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on the Open Land Contracts repository, CCSI has developed a Guide to Land Contracts: Forestry Projects.

This Guide, prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, aims to assist the Open Land Contracts repository users in unpacking the technical provisions and language typically found in forestry contracts in order to better understand the contracts and the potential implications of …

Differing Perceptions? Market Practice And The Evolution Of Foreign Sovereign Immunity, W. Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The 20th century witnessed a transformative, “tectonic” shift in international law, from “absolute” to “restrictive” theories of sovereign immunity. As conventionally understood, however, this dramatic transformation represented only a shift in the default rule. Under absolute immunity, national courts could not hear lawsuits and enforce judgments against a foreign sovereign without its consent. Under restrictive immunity, foreign sovereigns were presumptively not immune when they engaged in commercial acts. We demonstrate that market practices undermine this conventional understanding. Using an extensive, two-century data set of contracts between foreign governments and private creditors, we show that contracting parties have long treated absolute …

A Model-Law Approach To Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

Unresolved sovereign debt problems are hurting debtor nations, their citizens and their creditors, and also can pose serious systemic threats to the international financial system. The existing contractual restructuring approach is insufficient to make sovereign debt sustainable. Although a more systematic legal resolution framework is needed, a formal multilateral approach, such as a treaty, is not currently politically viable.

An informal model-law approach should be legally, politically and economically feasible. Individual countries could enact the proposed model law as their domestic law. Because most sovereign debt contracts are governed by either New York or English law, it would be especially …

Sovereign Debt And The “Contracts Matter” Hypothesis, W. Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The academic literature on sovereign debt largely assumes that law has little role to play. Indeed, the primary question addressed by the literature is why sovereigns repay at all given the irrelevance of legal enforcement. But if law, and specifically contract law, does not matter, how to explain the fact that sovereign loans involve detailed contracts, expensive lawyers, and frequent litigation? This Essay makes the case that contract design matters even in a world where sovereign borrowers are hard (but not impossible) to sue. We identify a number of gaps in the research that warrant further investigation.

Changing The Game: The Effects Of The 2012 Revision Of The Icc Arbitration Rules On The Icc Model Arbitration Clause For Trust Disputes, Colin Connor

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Foreign Nation Judgments - If State Law Provides For The Enforceability Of Foreign Judgments, The Judgment Is Enforceable Without Determination Of Whether The Arbitration Award On Which It Is Based Is Independently Enforceable Under The Convention On The Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Arbitral Awards, John W. Kindt

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Contracts - Arbitration Agreement - An Arbitration Agreement In An International Contract Is To Be Given Full Effect By Federal Courts Except Where Public Policy Or Equity Dictate Otherwise, James D. Dunham, J. S. Schuster

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Convention On The Uniform Law Of International Bills Of Exchange And International Promissory Notes: A Comparison To The Uniform Commercial Code, Harold S. White

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Jay-Z Has 99 Problems But A Sample Ain’T One, Rebecca Knight

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Immunity - The State Department’S Decision To Recognize And Allow The Claim Of Sovereign Immunity Is Binding Upon The Courts And Is Not Subject To Review Under The Administrative Procedure Act, Robin B. Gray Jr., George P. Shingler

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Convention Providing A Uniform Law On The Form Of An International Will: Problems With State Probate Law, Jack N. Sibley

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Soviet Accession To The Universal Copyright Convention: Possible Implications For Future Foreign Publication Of Dissidents’ Works, Lee J. Ross Jr.

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Foreign Investment Protection And Icsid Arbitration, Charles Vuylsteke

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Standard Investment Agreement: Text And Comments, Philippe Kahn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

English Matrimonial Cruelty Law In Nigeria: Dead Or Alive?, D. A. Ijalaye

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.