Damages

About: Damages is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9365 publications have been published within this topic receiving 89750 citations. The topic is also known as: compensation award.

Strategic Bankruptcy: How Corporations and Creditors Use Chapter 11 to Their Advantage

Abstract: In 1982, Johns-Manville, a major asbestos manufacturer, declares itself insolvent to avoid paying claims resulting from exposure to its products. A year later, Continental Airlines, one of the top ten carriers in the United States claims a deficit when the union resists plans to cut labour costs. Later still, oil powerhouse Texaco cries broke rather than pay damages resulting from a courtroom defeat by archrival Pennzoil. Bankruptcy, once a term that sent shudders up a manager's spine, has now become a potent weapon in the corporate arsenal. The author explores this profound change in our legal landscape, where corporations with billions of dollars in assets employ bankruptcy to achieve specific political and organizational objectives. As a consequence, bankruptcy court is rapidly becoming an arena in which crucial social issues are resolved. How and when will people dying of asbestos poisoning be compensated? Can companies unilaterally break legally negotiated labour contracts? What are the ethical and legal rules of the corporate takeover game? In probing the Chapter 11 bankruptcies of Johns-Manville, Frank Lorenzo's Continental Airlines and Texaco, the author shows not only that bankruptcy is pursued by managers more and more as a strategy, but that it is becoming accepted by the business community as a viable option and not just a last-ditch solution.

Private authority and transnational governance: the contours of the international system of investor protection

Abstract: Conventionally, investors could not sue states directly under international law and arbitration tribunals did not have general jurisdiction over international investment disputes. This has changed, especially since the early 1990s, with the emergence of an international system of investor protection that combines investor-state arbitration and broad standards of investor protection. The system elevates the legal status of investors (but not other individuals) in international law by allowing them to make international claims for damages against host states. Although the system depends on state authority for its establishment and ongoing effectiveness, the system adopts private authority as a method of transnational governance by permitting private investors to make claims and by giving private arbitrators the power to resolve those claims. This provides significant advantages to multinational enterprises at the expense of governmental flexibility in both capital-importing and capital-exporting states, as revealed by the recent explosion of investor claims. This article examines the legal architecture of the system in order to demonstrate how it expands private authority in the context of transnational governance.

Optimal Control Models and Elicitation of Attitudes towards Climate Damages

Abstract: This paper examines the consequences of various attitudes towards climate damages through a family of stochastic optimal control models (RESPONSE): cost-effectiveness for a given temperature ceiling; cost-benefit analysis with a “pure preference for current climate regime” and full cost-benefit analysis. The choice of a given proxy of climate change risks is actually more than a technical option. It is essentially motivated by the degree of distrust regarding the legitimacy of an assessment of climate damages and the possibility of providing in due time reliable and non controversial estimates. Our results demonstrate that (a) for early decades abatement, the difference between various decision-making frameworks appears to matter less than the difference between stochastic and non stochastic approach given the cascade of uncertainty from emissions to damages; (b) in a stochastic approach, the possibility of non-catastrophic singularities in the damage function is sufficient to significantly increase earlier optimal abatements; (c) a window of opportunity for action exists up to 2040: abatements further delayed may induce significant regret in case of bad news about climate response or singularities in damages.

No win, no fee: Some economics of contingent legal fees

Abstract: mark up in different types of case, is to be issued after consultation with professional bodies. American style share contracts, whereby the lawyer is paid a proportion of the award if the case is won and nothing if it is lost, will continue to be unenforceable at law and prohibited by the professional bodies. The introduction of contingency fees in England and Wales has been discussed in a number of official and semi-official reports without any consensus emerging.3 We use a formal model of the litigation process to analyse the implications of contingent fees under both English and United States cost shifting rules. In the model potential defendants can take care to avoid accidents which impose losses on potential plaintiffs. If an accident occurs the defendant is sued by the plaintiff and makes a settlement offer. If the plaintiff rejects the offer the case proceeds to trial. Plaintiffs who win at trial are awarded damages and, under English rules, costs against the defendant. Lawyer-client contracts can be evaluated by the extent to which they (a) compensate plaintiffs after an accident by making it easy to sue and obtain redress, (b) induce settlements rather than costly trials and (c) provide

Economic Valuation of on Site Material Damages of High Water on Economic Activities based in the City of Venice: Results from a Dose-Response-Expert-Based Valuation Approach

Abstract: The paper focuses on the economic assessment of damages caused by high water in the city of Venice. In particular, we focus our attention on a valuation exercise that addresses the estimation of monetary, short period, on-site damages due to high water events on the different business activities located in Venice. On-site damages include both mitigation costs, which refer to all types of financial expenditure undergone to avert physical and material damages caused by flooding, and remediation costs, i.e. costs to be sustained for maintenance and substitution of affected building elements. Hence, the present study can be considered as a pioneering attempt to analytically quantify, from an economic point of view, on-site damages from high water. An integrated dose-response modelling and an expert-based valuation approach have been selected as the most suitable economic valuation methodology to shed light on the on-site damages. The main focus of the work is to assess dose-response relationships, which are able to describe the physical effects of high water on the different on-site damage categories, including inner and front doors maintenance, cleaning of pavements and maintenance of the walls. Bearing in mind such an economic valuation framework, we proceed with the estimation of on-site damages not only for the present high water situation (business as usual) but also extend the valuation exercise to three additional high water scenarios: (1) a climate change scenario; (2) a high water protection scenario; and, (3) a combined climate change and protection scenario. Estimation results show that the welfare loss due to on-site, short-term damages supported by the business activities ranges from 3.41 to 4.73 million Euro per year, respectively for the business as usual and climate change scenarios. Finally, we can conclude that the introduction of a public policy protection mechanism that defends the city of Venice from any flooding above 110 cm above the Punta della Salute Tidal Datum, such as the MOSE, will reduce the on-site damages supported by the business activities up to 2.87 million Euro per year.