Showing papers on "Principal (commercial law) published in 1999"

Labor markets in the transitional Central and East European economies

Abstract: In this chapter, I survey principal econometric studies of several important labor market issues in Central and East European countries as they launched the transition from central planning to a market economy. The topics covered include employment, wage and fringe benefits determination in firms, individual wages and human capital, determinants of unemployment duration, and matching of the unemployed and vacancies. The studies are of interest because one can observe the functioning of nascent markets and institutions after prices and wages ceased being set by planners. Moreover, the variation in relevant variables has been tremendous, thus permitting the researchers to estimate precisely key parameters.

Low Balling, Legal Liability and Auditor Independence

Abstract: We construct a dynamic multi-agent moral hazard model to analyze the interactions among the firm owner, the manager and the auditor. Moral hazard may arise in hierarchical agency because a rational monitoring agent may accept a side payment from the monitored agent for misrepresenting information to the principal. This multi-agent moral hazard problem is the essence of the concern for auditor independence. We show that a ?low-balling? compensation scheme and the auditor's legal liability constitute an efficient dynamic contracting mechanism for hierarchical agency. In particular, low balling serves as a substitute for legal liabilities for maintaining auditor independence. Low balling reduces the transaction costs associated with the audit engagement relative to the flat-fee structure and can actually improve auditor independence.

Legal Rules and International Society

Abstract: The principal argument of the book is that international law and international legal institutions are an important element of international relations and that political scientists in particular need to be more aware of the contributions they make. Arend critiques both the long-standing scepticism among political scientists, particularly adherents of structural realism, and the assumptions and methodologies of international lawyers.

Formalism in the Tax Law

Abstract: The tax law is the paradigmatic system of rules. Over thirteen large black volumes filled with tax rules sit on my shelf. Yet over the last several years, the purely rule-oriented approach to the tax law has begun to be perceived as a failure. The reason is that taxpayers have been able to manipulate the rules endlessly to produce results clearly not intended by the drafters. Manipulation of this sort is inefficient, loses revenue, and demoralizes others. To respond, lawmakers and regulators have shifted the tax system toward standards, primarily by adopting what are known as "anti-abuse rules." A typical anti-abuse rule allows the government (and only the goverrnment) to override the literal words of a statute or regulation. Instead, the government may require a "reasonable" tax result if the taxpayer enters into or structures a transaction with a principal purpose of reducing tax liabilities in a manner contrary to the purposes of the statute or regulation, even if the transaction otherwise literally complies with the rules.'

Corruption under moral hazard

Abstract: Some corruption of employees will exist when managers are constrained in setting rewards and penalties Attempts to reduce corruption need to address these constraints Raising salaries without raising expected penalties will have higher costs than benefits In this theoretical analysis, the principal can be the head of the tax collection agency (or government or even citizens), the supervisor can be the tax collector, and the agent can be the taxpayer The principal, interested in controlling an agent's socially costly activity (cheating), hires the supervisor to save on monitoring costs The agent may bribe the tax collector to suppress reporting, but bribery can be eliminated by the agency head if he institutes enough investigations and sets rewards high enough and penalties steep enough When penalties and rewards are constrained, some corruption will exist even under a rational approach to pursuing the agency's objectives Anticorruption efforts will have higher costs than benefits unless they successfully address these constraints The agency's implementation costs, and thus the scope for corruption, are defined by constraints on penalties and rewards relative to costs of monitoring and investigation For example, if the agency head is extremely handicapped in his ability to detect bribery (by a high burden of proof and cost of investigation, and a civil service pay scale that is too flat and rigid), he cannot really reward good employees or make dishonest employees suffer The analysis assumes that the principal can commit in advance to a certain likelihood of being caught engaging in bribery Creating an independent anticorruption commission (like those in Hong Kong and New South Wales) may be interpreted as a way of making such a commitment In Hong Kong two-thirds of reports to the commission are made in full name, an indication that it has attained a reputation for independence and efficiency The whistleblower act in the United States (promising rewards and protection for informants), as well as separation of powers and independent courts, also function as commitment Corruption exists not only in poorly designed but also in sophisticated systems It can profitably be reduced only by improving general incentives Advances in courts, investigations, freedom of the press, and flow of information can allow more performance-based rewards and penalties This paper - a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study accountability and the organization of government Gunnar Eskeland may be contacted at geskeland@worldbankorg

The Public Service Ethos: Decline and Renewal?

Abstract: This article examines the two principal means by which ethically based standards of conduct can be secured in public administration. The first approach, advocated by Carl Friedrich in the 1940s, pl...

Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Abstract: The 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation replaces the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code and was adopted by the State Duma on 24 May 1996. It officially entered into force on 1 January 1997. This updated translation contains all amendments up to 1 September 1999. Appended is an index which serves simultaneously as a glossary of the principal terms of Russian criminal law, drawing in part on Butler's earlier translations of the 1958 Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation of the USSR and the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code. The introduction examines criminal law reforms in the Russian Federation, including Russian legal policy toward criminal law. The editor also includes an explanation of how to use the criminal code.

Corruption under moral hazard

Abstract: In this theoretical analysis, the"principal"can be the head of the tax collection agency (or"government"or even citizens), the"supervisor"can be the tax collector, and the"agent"can be the taxpayer. The principal, interested in controlling an agent's socially costly activity ("cheating"), hires the supervisor to save on monitoring costs. The agent may bribe the tax collector to suppress reporting, but bribery can be eliminated by the agency head if he institutes enough investigations and sets rewards high enough and penalties steep enough. When penalties and rewards are constrained, some corruption will exist even under a rational approach to pursuing the agency's objectives. Anti-corruption efforts will have higher costs than benefits unless they successfully address these constraints. The agency's implementation costs, and thus the scope for corruption, are defined by constraints on penalties and rewards relative to costs of monitoring and investigation. For example, if the agency head is extremely handicapped in his ability to detect bribery (by a high burden of proof and cost of investigation, and a civil service pay scale that is too flat and rigid), he cannot really reward good employees or make dishonest employees suffer. The analysis assumes that the principal can commit in advance to a certain likelihood of being caught engaging in bribery. Creating an independent anti-corruption commission (like those in Hong Kong and New South Wales) may be interpreted as a way of making such a commitment. In Hong Kong two-thirds of reports to the commission are made in full name, an indication that it has attained a reputation for independence and efficiency. The"whistleblower act"in the United states (promising rewards and protection for informants), as well as separation of powers and independent courts, also function as commitment. Corruption exists not only in poorly designed but also in sophisticated systems. It can profitably be reduced only by improving general incentives. Advances in courts, investigations, freedom of the press, and flow of information can allow more performance-based rewards and penalties.

Informed consent in research.

Abstract: The relationship between physician and patient, as generally delineated by the Hippocratic Oath and the American Medical Association's 1994 Principles of Medical Ethics, is one between a fiduciary and a principal. In such a relationship, the duties of loyalty and trust run from the fiduciary to the principal. The fiduciary (physician) is the person to whom the relevant interests of the principal (patient) are entrusted. It is the medical best interests of the patient, not the physician, that are in trust. The relationship, while usually gratifying and financially rewarding, is essentially one of professional altruism. Nevertheless, the satisfaction of this fiduciary obligation requires the performance of general duties at levels dictated by the nature and scope of medical intervention.

Agency-Theorie, Informationskosten und Managervergütung

Abstract: Agency theory assumes a potential conflict of interest between principal and agent. Principals provide incentives to agents to influence agents’ behaviour in the interest of the principal. In practice, incentive systems are dominanted by financial incentives and consist of fixed and performance related variable pay. Empirical studies concentrated on the analysis of the sensitivity of variable pay. Most studies found very low values which were considered too low to have any incentive effect. This paper tries to give a theoretical answer to the empirical puzzle of low incentive factors. In the first step, we show that low values of the incentive factor occur if high environmental uncertainty, high risk aversion by the agent and/or high opportunity costs for the agent exist. In the second step, we show that investments in information gathering by the principal to reduce uncertainty lead to higher incentive factors as well as higher returns for the principal. The magnitude of improved returns is shown by assuming various information cost functions.

The Professional Responsibility of Professional Schools To Study and Teach about the Profession.

Abstract: It is now fashionable to bemoan the increasing separation or "disjunction," in the words of one influential account between the legal academy and the profession that it is supposed to serve.1 This criticism typically takes one of two forms. The first, represented by the ABA's influential MacCrate Report, argues that law schools are not teaching law students the skills they need to be competent and ethical practitioners.2 The second, eloquently argued by Harry Edwards and by my copanelist Anthony Kronman, complains about the increasingly theoretical character of law teaching and legal scholarship.3 The law school of today, these critics contend, pays insufficient attention to the doctrinal questions real lawyers and judges face, and to the style of practical and analogic reasoning needed to resolve these problems. In this essay I want to highlight a different failing, one that I submit is much deeper and longer-standing than either of the two standard critiques of legal education that have come to dominate the debate: the law school's systematic and pervasive failure to study and to teach about the profession. This persistent failure, I submit, is more than just a pedagogical oversight or a scholarly shortcoming. Instead, it is nothing less than an ethical failure by the legal academy to meet the legitimate needs of its three principal constituencies students, the bar, and society. At a time when the American legal profession is being radically transformed on almost every dimension, law schools can no longer credibly assert that by simply teaching students to "think like lawyers" they have given their graduates all the tools or even the most important tools that they will need to become successful and satisfied practitioners. If individual lawyers, the bar, and the public we serve are to emerge from this

Fiduciaries: when is self-denial obligatory?

Abstract: A highly paid agent sets out to undermine his principal’s business. A doctor wangles sex-for-drugs favours from a patient. An advisor offers self-interested advice to his client. A father engages in an incestuous relationship with his child. In each case the perpetrator is clearly a wrongdoer and the law must somehow respond. But what is the legal wrong and how should the law respond? The thesis advanced here is that it is too easy - and is ultimately unsatisfactory - to meet any justifiable moral outrage simply by tagging these people as fiduciaries and then applying against them the full remedial force of fiduciary law. If the law is to be applied consistently, predictably and efficiently, then categorisation of fact situations as illustrating particular wrongs and as meriting particular remedies must be more discriminating. There are real choices to be made in deciding how to develop this area of the law, choices which can be seen in operation in different forms in different Commonwealth jurisdictions. Albeit only in outline form, this article puts the case for a very tightly defined notion of fiduciary obligation and an equally restrictive view of the appropriate remedial response. It points to several issues which appear to work against precision in fiduciary law, and advocates a strict response. It concludes by attempting to pinpoint what appears to be critical in identifying fiduciaries.

The Dangers of Relying on a Legal List: A Case Study of the West Virginia Consolidated Investment Fund

Abstract: Since the mid 1970s, many local governments have begun using state-run local government investment pools for their cash management needs. Some pools operate under statutory limitations on investment instruments known as “legal lists,” other pools operate either under a “Prudent Person Rule” standard, while others use a combination of the two. This article examines the potential dangers of an investment pool relying too heavily upon a legal list fiduciary standard, by examining the West Virginia Consolidated Investment Fund, which lost nearly 25 percent of its principal in a financial scandal during the 1980s.

Minimum Wages and Poverty

Abstract: The principal justification for minimum wage legislation has been the claim that it would improve the economic condition of low-wage workers. Most previous analyses of the distributional effects of minimum wages have been based on simulation exercises employing restrictive assumptions that guarantee the conclusion that an increase in the minimum wage reduces poverty. In contrast, the authors of this paper adopt a more flexible "reduced-form" approach that links increases in both federal and state minima to contemporaneous changes in poverty rates. For the period 1983-96, they find indications of a poverty-reducing effect of minimum wages among teenagers and older junior high school dropouts.

Spirits in a Material World: IntelligentAgents as Intermediaries in Electronic Commerce

Abstract: ... Consequently, whether one contemplates future automated transactions as between two electronic devices or between one electronic device and a human individual or corporation, it is difficult to conceive of any such transaction as achieving the fundamental traditional prerequisite to contract formation, viz. the parties' formation of a meeting of the minds . ... In such situations, treating the electronic device as an independent legal person would serve to absolve of contractual liability the human user who created the device through a recognition of the fact that some other "person" put forth the offer. ... Since disputes in electronic commerce will involve only the relations between principal and third party, there is no need for the ' agent' (i.e., the electronic device) to have agreed to or to have knowledge of the conferring of authority at all. So long as it can be established that the 'principal' (i.e., the person initiating the electronic device) did confer 'authority' in one way or other, the 'agency' relationship will be established and the 'principal' will be bound by the operations of the electronic 'agent'. ...

Feminism and Family Law

Abstract: Feminism's principal contribution to the law of the family in the United States has been to open up that institution to critical scrutiny and question the justice of a legal regime that has permitted, even re inforced, the subordination of some family members to others. The family has long been idealized as a refuge?a "haven in a heartless world"?requiring privacy and freedom from public interference. It still is. Feminists have attempted to pierce this shield of privacy, to reach the injustice of family relationships and the law that permits them. They have questioned the premises of family privacy, insisting that just because relationships are private does not make them beyond public concern. They have challenged the inevitability or naturalness of family privacy, arguing that where the line is drawn between private and public is itself a highly discretionary, political act. And they have exposed the hypocrisy of a construct that purports to be neutral but that suppresses recognition of the kinds of harms from which women disproportion ately suffer, while leaving room for prohibition of the kinds of harms men experience. The purpose of this essay is to review some of what feminists have found when they opened up the family to scrutiny and what they have sought to do about it. It focuses on three areas: (1) divorce; (2) sex and reproduction; and (3) domestic violence. Because of space limitations, other relevant areas are omitted, including the law of marriage, work/ family regulation, and the state welfare system. Even as to the topics I cover, my purpose is not a comprehensive survey of legal reforms, but rather a sketch of some common themes that helps to explain the role of feminism in family law reform.

Retaliation: Agency Theory and Gaps in the Law

Abstract: This paper will explore the application of agency theory, the view that the principal is responsible for the actions of his agent, to the law of retaliation in sexual harassment cases. In the law the agency principle is sometimes known as the doctrine of respondeat superior. This doctrine has been used in sexual harassment cases, most frequently in hostile environment cases, but also in quid pro quo cases. The question addressed in this paper is, "Can the principle of respondeat superior be applied to issues of retaliation where the retaliation in question is not conducted by an employer, directly, but indirectly through the actions of a co-worker who had been accused of sexual harassment?" Section 704 (a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in part reads as follows: "It shall be an unlawful practice for an employer to discriminate against any of its employees or applicants for employment...because he has opposed any practice, made an unlawful employment practice by this title, or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in any investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this title." The language seems clear enough, but what of a circumstance in which a harassing fellow employee uses tactics which are plainly retaliatory, except that they are conducted by the employee, not the employer, but the employer does nothing to curb the retaliatory behavior? Does this mean that an earlier victim of sexual harassment must now be the victim of retaliation? In the enforcement of Title VII, does the employer have a responsibility to bring the wayward harasser to tow? This paper will lay out the broad outlines of retaliation from a legal perspective, examine some applications of respondeat superior in sexual harassment law and finally suggest gaps in the law wherein this principle may be applied in cases of retaliation following sexual harassment claims. Our examination will also include retaliation against supporting fellow employees of a victim. Agency Theory The name used for the concept in the law that we normally associate with agency theory is the term, respondeat superior. It is the name given to the idea that the principal is responsible for the acts of his agent when the agent is acting within the scope of his employment. In common law, "a master is liable for the tortuous acts of his servant if the agency relationship aids the servant in accomplishing the tort."[1] Agency theory has been around at least since Blackstone. In sexual harassment cases this concept is sometimes distinguished from "strict liability." Where respondeat superior relies on "constructive knowledge" of an event in which the principal "knew or should have known" of its occurrence, strict liability holds the principal responsible without regard to the question of constructive knowledge, but only with respect to the factual nature of the event. Strict liability has emerged more recently and derives from the desire to hold manufacturers responsible for defective or harmful products in product liability cases. Of strict liability: Prime consideration under this doctrine is the character of the product, not the conduct of the defendant. Many considerations germane to other areas of the law of product liability, such as negligence, contributory negligence, privity, disclaimer, or limitation of liability, may be irrelevant to strict liability.[2] At one level it appears that respondeat superior and strict liability are the same in that the principal is responsible for the acts of his agent. At another level, if the following facts are established; did A work for B?, did the event occur?, and did harm result?, then strict liability applies. In sexual harassment literature the terms sometimes employed in this discussion are vicarious liability and constructive knowledge, where the former is treated as identical with strict liability and the latter is treated as identical with respondeat superior. …

A Principal-Agent Analysis of the Family: Implications for the Welfare State

Abstract: The principal-agent literature has focussed on situations where both principal and agent are assumed to be capable of defining and defending their own interests. The principal-agent literature has thus ignored an important set of cases where the principal is incapable of acting on her own behalf, and so is assigned an agent by law or custom. Such cases account for around 40% of humanity and for a similarly substantial proportion of all principal-agent interactions. This paper applies principal-agent analysis to one such case, the family, where the child is taken as the principal and the parent is her agent. The principal-agent problem within families creates a prima facie case for state interventions to protect child-principals, since some parents will shirk and the consequences of such shirking may be serious and irreversible damage to the child-principal, who cannot defend herself. The principal-agent perspective on the family sheds new light on two old debates: about whether state welfare services should be provided in cash or in kind, and about user fees for social services involving children.

Moral Hazard and Limited Liability

Abstract: Real world contracts limit the liabilities of agents by imposing constraints on their transfers or on their utilities. In an adverse selection model, Sappington (1983) has shown that the two constraints yield an equivalent problem for the principal. We show that this result does not hold in a moral hazard framework. More specifically, we show that restrictions on the utilities are stronger in the sense that they yield a lower level of effort from the agent. Moreover, given an optimal contract constrained by a limited liability on utility, one can always find a Pareto dominating contract constrained by a limited liability on transfers.

Agency-Theorie, Informationskosten und Managervergütung

Abstract: Agency theory assumes a potential conflict of interest between principal and agent. Principals provide incentives to agents to influence agents' behaviour in the interest of the principal. In practice, incentive systems are dominanted by financial incentives and consist of fixed and performance related variable pay. Empirical studies concentrated on the analysis of the sensitivity of variable pay. Most studies found very low values which were considered too low to have any incentive effect. This paper tries to give a theoretical answer to the empirical puzzle of low incentive factors. In the first step, we show that low values of the incentive factor occur if high environmental uncertainty, high risk aversion by the agent and/or high opportunity costs for the agent exist, In the second step, we show that investments in information gathering by the principal to reduce uncertainty lead to higher incentive factors as well as higher returns for the principal. The magnitude of improved returns is shown by assuming various information cost functions.

A Revised Prospectus for a Third Restatement of Agency

Abstract: The article is based on a prospectus submitted to the American Law Institute proposing a new Restatement of Agency, to succeed Restatement (Second) of Agency, which was completed in 1958. Like the prospectus, the article identifies a number of practical and theoretical respects in which Restatement (Second) has been overtaken by subsequent developments. The article begins by distinguishing the definition of agency within legal doctrine from the meanings ascribed to agency in other disciplines, such as economics. The article then sketches the key elements of doctrine within the common law of agency and illustrates contemporary controversies concerning their application. Agency is intellectually distinctive within the law because it focuses on relationships in which one person (the agent), one way or another, is in a position to act with consequences for another person (the principal). Agency doctrine looks inward, to the relationship between the agent and the principal, as well as outward, to the consequences for the agent and principal of the agent's interactions with third parties. The outward looking consequences of agency encompass contracts entered into by the agent as well as the agent's wrongful acts. Much in agency turns on the scope or range of the agent's relationship with the principal. Agency doctrine reaches broadly, defining the legal consequences of choosing to act through another person in lieu of oneself. In a contemporary context, many principals as well as many agents are organizations, themselves networks or chains of agency relationships. A contemporary Restatement should reflect this reality, as well as provide an intellectual framework and a set of doctrinal formulations that enable courts, legal practitioners, and scholars to analyze ongoing and future developments.

The Collusion Problem in Agency Law

Abstract: The law of agency is one of the basic building blocks of business. Agents facilitate transactions between firms and structure governance relations within firms. Agency law regulates both types of activity. Yet agency law's main focus has always been on the transactional side. The key feature of transactional--traditional--agency law is the tripartitite relationship among the principal, agent, and third party. Law and economics scholars, however, have mostly focused on the role of agency within organizations. More traditional business law scholars have also paid little attention to agency law in recent years. This paper develops an economic theory of transactional agency law. I argue that what makes the three-party structure of agency law different from two-party structures is the potential for collusive behavior between any two of the three parties against the other. My thesis is that transactional agency law can largely be understood as attempting to facilitate transactions by deterring collusion between principals and agents, between agents and third parties, and between principals and third parties. Agency law does this by providing guidelines for determining when collusion of various types should be presumed. I develop a theory of collusive behavior and then apply this theory to various doctrines in agency law that have long troubled scholars and courts, including contractual authority, undisclosed principal, and ratification. Throughout, I compare the collusion theory with an alternative economic theory that explains agency rules under the least cost avoider principle.

Formalism in the Tax Law

Abstract: This paper considers the use of so-called "anti-abuse rules" in the tax law. Anti-abuse rules are standards that override the otherwise applicable rules. They allow the government and only the government to override the literal words of a statute or regulation to require a reasonable tax result. The government may apply an anti-abuse rule if the taxpayer enters into or structures a transaction with a principal purpose of reducing tax liabilities contrary to the purposes of the statute or regulation, even if the transaction otherwise literally complies with the rules. The most important feature of anti-abuse rules is their substitution of standards for rules. The paper argues that standards provide a trade-off with a more traditional rule-bound approach to the tax law. The argument is that, at least in the tax law, rules must be systematically more complex than standards. Tax rules must be highly complex because mistaxation of even a rare transaction allows taxpayers to structure transactions to take advantage of the result. With rules, uncommon transactions become common. Standards allow the tax law to be less complex than rules because they need not specify in advance the results of uncommon transactions. Uncommon transactions stay that way. The trade-off is that standards are less certain than rules.

Principled Adjudication: Tort Law and Beyond

Abstract: The article briefly discusses the impossibility of a strict formalist or positivist approach to legal adjudication and the necessity and plausibility of a principled approach, according to which it is necessary to resort, explicitly or implicitly, to the principles underlying the positive expressions or sources of law to identify, interpret and apply the law, in easy as well as hard cases. The legitimacy of the principled approach crucially depends on resort to the community's moral principles as embedded in the existing law -- those moral principles which best explain as much as possible of the existing law -- rather than allowing, as Ronald Dworkin has argued, judges to adopt whichever moral principles they subjectively deem best that satisfy some minimum threshhold of descriptive fit. Do such moral principles exist, embedded in the law? Many legal skeptics argue that they do not. The two principal competing moral theories of law are the justice theory, based on the foundational norm of maximizing everyone's equal individual freedom, and the utilitarian efficiency theory, based on the foundational norm of maximizing the total aggregate pleasure, happiness or wealth of the society as a whole. After briefly describing each theory and its implications for legal obligation, a brief survey is undertaken of several major tort doctrines or issues: plaintiff's consent as a complete defense, plaintiff's contributory negligence as a complete or partial defense, the distinction between intentional torts and the tort of negligence, the distinction between tort law and criminal law, and the availability of punitive damages in tort law. The justice theory explains and justifies each of these doctrines and distinctions, while the utilitarian efficiency theory is not able to explain or justify any of them. Similar findings were made for the major elements of negligence law in a prior essay, "The Standards of Care in Negligence Law", which was published in Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law, OUP 1995).

The dismissal of a school principal : the micropolitics of the critical incident

Abstract: Organizations, such as schools, can be perceived of as political entities in which informal aspects, interests and power struggles, as well as co-operation and support building, help shape and define the organization. This study is an examination of the interplay of the micropolitical forces combining from within and from outside the school, Presbyterian Ladies' College, Croydon, Sydney, to destabilize and eventually unseat the principal. The culmination of this extraordinary period at this school is the critical incident at the heart of this study, a botched attempt at forcing the resignation of principal, Freda Whitlam, giving rise to her decision to resign a short time later. The circumstances and events surrounding these final months of 1976 are the subject of some detailed consideration in this study. The specific aims of the study include the clarification of events, key players, and their respective roles in the critical incident. A further aim addresses the extent to which Whitlam's character, gender, and leadership practice and style contributed to the critical incident, and to what extent did her achievements consolidate her hold on the principal's position? Further research questions include to what extent did micropolitics influence the outcome of the critical incident, and what were the micropolitical forces and how did they interact to influence the critical incident? The case study method, using qualitative data gathering and analysing techniques, is applied to this study. Interviewing, supported by documentary searches and analysis, are the techniques available to the researcher. Interviewees include the subject of the dismissal, Freda Whitlam, the initiator of the dismissal, Chairman, Peter Graham, and members of the School Council, the staff, and the school support groups. Open access to sensitive documentation was granted to the researcher. Analysis of the data revealed a complex interplay of forces acting on the school which included national influences that were largely beyond the control of the principal. These external forces combined with issues and instability within the school to create destabilizing competition for power, and factional activity that unsettled the principal. Issues of character and personality, and leadership style, were significant in affecting the outcome. Freda Whitlam had begun her nineteen years service with great promise and youthful enthusiasm. She served through a unique period in Australian social, political and church history and became unavoidably entwined in the dynamics of these years. By the mid 1970s, the external influences had so intruded upon, and damaged relationships within the school, that essential trust and loyalty had been lost. In 1976, a combination of these external and internal forces culminated in the critical incident at this school.

Implementation of the Trips Agreement and Prospects for its Further Development

Abstract: WTO Members can look back on the first three and a half years of the TRIPS Agreement with some satisfaction. Implementation by developed countries has been broadly satisfactory, although not without its gaps and delays. The TRIPS Council has developed and run-in important mechanisms for monitoring compliance. The dispute settlement mechanism has, in general, worked well and has already yielded positive results in the TRIPS area. A huge amount has been done by developing countries in anticipation of the end of their transition periods. Cooperation with WIPO has been established and is going well. Some useful work has been done on the built-in agenda. However, the principal challenges probably remain for the future. Much still has to be done by developing countries to bring themselves into compliance. The mechanisms of the WTO, in particular the TRIPS Council and the dispute settlement system, have to show that they have the capacity to deal with compliance issues arising from implementation by more than 130 Members as opposed to the 30 plus countries so far. As for the further development of the Agreement, the coming period leading to the possible launching of broad-based negotiations, in the WTO at the end of 1999 will be a critical period for reflection and consensus-building on the way in which the TRIPS Agreement should evolve in the future.

Signing the Report - Recognition, Responsibility and Liability for the Qualified Person

Abstract: David Abbott introduces us to the evolving concepts of the Qualified Person and Competent Person, in his recent article, “What is a Competent or Qualified Person and Who Cares?” (TPG, Jan. 99). Now, in his article, “Personal Versus Corporate Responsibility and Liability,” he raises the intriguing possibility of recognizing groups or corporations as “Competent.” Also, professional liability is of great concern to many of us consultants. Therefore, I will add my independent consultant and somewhat international perspective to the discussion. The concept raised by the “Qualified Person” issue, of individuals taking responsibility for their work, has a long history in the earth sciences. When I first began working as a contract geologist in minerals exploration and mining in Australia and Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, essentially every map, cross-section, drill log, table and written document, contained the names of the individuals who created and updated them and the dates thereof. During my past two decades of working in the USA, my observation is that the willingness or ability of individuals to put their names on such documents, let alone complete technical reports, is low and getting lower. The concept of the individuals actually signing the report is fading even faster. Many consulting reports that I receive, or subcontract on, contain no mention of the individuals who worked on the project, let alone any indication of which parts they created. Sometimes a principal of the consulting company has signed the report, but commonly we don’t even have that.

The Law of Agency

Abstract: After reading this chapter you will know about: 1 the nature of agency and the source of the agent’s authority to bind the principal 2 the rights and duties of the agent 3 the liability of the agent to third parties 4 the termination of the agency 5 the Commercial Agents Regulations 1993

The Principal and Reference Letters

Abstract: Requests to write letters of reference for former teachers place principals and other school administrators in a position of potential liability. Following established policies, along with documentation of fair and objective treatment of all such requests, lessens exposure to successful legal actions for school administrators.