Principal (commercial law)

About: Principal (commercial law) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1579 publications have been published within this topic receiving 35379 citations. The topic is also known as: Principal (commercial law).

China's labour laws in transition

Abstract: A number of new pieces of labour legislation were adopted in 2007 by the People’s Republic of China. They include the second principal labour law in China: the Labour Contract Law of the PRC (the Labour Contract Law); the fi rst law on labour dispute resolution: the Law on Labour Dispute Mediation and Arbitration of the PRC (the Labour Dispute Law), and the Employment Promotion Law of the PRC (the Employment Promotion Law). Other new legislation includes the Provisions on Employment Services and Employment Management (the Employment Management Provisions) and the Regulations on Employees’ Paid Annual Leaves (the Annual Leaves Regulations). Prior to these legislative developments, there already was a national labour law: the Labour Law of the PRC (the Labour Law), and an administrative regulation on labour dispute resolution: the Regulations of the PRC on Settlement of Labour Disputes in Enterprises (the Labour Dispute Regulations). This is complex legal terrain and, not surprisingly, the drafting and adoption of the Labour Contract Law have generated intense debate. After all, China’s legal and regulatory labour framework is being completely overhauled. When an earlier draft of the law was released for public comment, the authority received over 191,800 responses in one month (Guan 2009: 13). International business organizations such as the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai have raised objections to some provisions in the draft (Cooney et al. 2007: 791; Li 2009: 1108-9; Xu 2009: 454-5). Opposing voices were also raised by multinational corporations (Kahn and Barboza 2007) and domestic capital (Xu 2009: 455). The law was fi nally adopted in June 2007. This chapter examines why there were such extensive legislative activities on labour law in 2007 and why the Labour Contract Law and the Labour Dispute Law were adopted despite the existence of the Labour Law and the Labour Dispute Regulations. Why, for instance, was the Labour Contract Law adopted, notwithstanding strong concerns being expressed by private enterprises, whose investments have been playing a pivotal role in China’s rapid economic growth and development? What precisely are the implica-3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4the changes been made? Are there other key issues that warrant attention? This chapter examines these questions through an analysis of the interaction of socio-economic development and changes to the labour system in China in recent years. To do this, a comparative study is used – examining the new laws against the dynamics of the legal regime before the new laws were introduced. The objectives are to reveal the signifi cance of the changes: What are the implications for domestic and foreign investors in the private sector? What are the implications for SOEs? And what do the changes ‘signify’ about China’s civil and commercial law reform movement more generally?

Presumed Innocent: Navigation Rights and Risk-Based Activities in the Passamaquoddy Bay

Abstract: This paper considers the inter-relationship between the rules regarding innocent passage of foreign ships carrying hazardous goods through another state's territorial waters under the law of the sea, on the one hand, with the general obligations on states that arise under international environmental law in relation to transboundary environmental risks. These two sets of rules are considered in relation to a controversy between the United States and Canada over the potential siting of liquefied natural gas terminals in the Passamaquoddy Bay, which would require the shipping of liquefied natural gas through Canadian waters notwithstanding that the Canadian government has maintained that it has a sovereign right to exclude passage through these waters. My principal conclusion is that, notwithstanding the more precautionary posture of international environmental norms, international law as a whole has generally left the discretion to undertake risk-based activities in the hands of the states undertaking those activities. In short, risk-based activities are presumed innocent and the threshold for determining non-innocence remains high. That said, the procedural obligations of international environmental law provide an opportunity for a more cooperative and contextually sensitive approach to resolving disputes involving risk-based activities, such as the Passamaquoddy Bay controversy. In essence, the rules regarding innocent passage forsake contextual sensitivity in favour of legal certainty, while the rules in relation to transboundary environmental harm call for much greater consideration of the respective rights and interests of the parties. Taken together, the rules retain overall coherence by allowing source (flag) states to undertake unilateral activities, but only after satisfying onerous procedural obligations of risk evaluation and good faith consultation.

Approximation of secured credit laws in global economies: methodological challenges

Abstract: The principal aim of this volume is to explore commercial contract law in scholarship and legal practice, to discuss new research agendas and provide a forum for debate of topical issues that might benefit from further attention by scholarship and legislatures. This chapter on methodological challenges within the approximation of personal property security law regimes raises what is a key contemporary problem as commercial legislations continue to grow out of national boundaries. It raises some of the most challenging issues in this area of commercial law due to its dependence on baseline concepts of insolvency and property laws and because of the vast differences within the laws of national legal systems in these areas. This chapter thus contributes to a topic of central importance to any project of law reform on an international level in commercial law. In particular, in the context of multiple projects for the approximation and modernisation of personal property security law, this chapter proposes to analyse some of the methodological challenges that have arisen as a result of these initiatives. It is argued that there are still outstanding challenges and obstacles to the comprehensive approximation and modernisation of personal property security law. The analysis sketches out and critically considers four methodological challenges connected to the justification of approximation of law projects, the appropriation of international endeavours and the issues of legitimacy and enforcement within the emergence of a transnational personal property security law framework.

Statutory Interpretation in Securities Jurisprudence: A Failure of Textualism

Abstract: This Article critiques the development of textualist theory in securities jurisprudence and analyzes the Central Bank decision as an example of the defects inherent in the application of a textualist approach. It demonstrates how the development of textualist securities jurisprudence stemmed from decisions that casually rejected precedent and mischaracterized existing law, thereby resulting in a distortion of the legislature’s intent. An analysis of the Securities Exchange Act demonstrates how the Central Bank Court’s approach towards statutory interpretation led to its failure to analyze other relevant Exchange Act provisions, including the most relevant provision – Section 20(a). The first section of this Article summarizes the Central Bank decision and provides a framework for a statutory critique by reviewing the principal theories of statutory interpretation. The second section addresses the forms of secondary liability available under the Exchange Act, all of which were affected by Central Bank. This section illustrates how the post-Central Bank cases confirmed the dissents' and the commentators’ concerns over the viability of secondary liability under section 10(b). The third section questions the Central Bank Court’s adoption of textualist theory in light of its prior holdings concerning section 10(b)’s implied right of action, which followed a purposivist philosophy. The fourth section, in addition to addressing the decision’s internal inconsistency, reviews its sweeping application in order to demonstrate its failure to adequately analyze the intended role of secondary liability under the Exchange Act. The fifth and final section addresses the decision’s impact and calls for the revival of section 20(a) in order to follow the 73rd Congress’ intent in allowing secondary liability claims. Additionally, this section critiques the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which similarly distorted the 73rd Congress’ intent.

The Business of Treaties

Abstract: Business entities play important and underappreciated roles in the production of international treaties. At the same time, international treaty law is hobbled by state-centric presumptions that render its response to business ad hoc and unprincipled.This Article makes three principal contributions. First, it draws from case studies to demonstrate the significance of business participation in treaty production. The descriptive account invites a shift from attention to traditional lobbying at the domestic level and private standard-setting at the transnational level to the ways business entities have become autonomous international actors, using a panoply of means to transform their preferred policies into law. Second, the Article analyzes the significance of these descriptive facts, identifying an important set of questions raised by business roles in treaty production. Specifically, business participation could affect the success or failure of treaties along a number of different axes that this Article identifies: participation, process, substance, and compliance. Third, observing that scholars and lawmakers could seize an opportunity to design a theoretically principled legal response to business roles in treaty production, the Article identifies both potential legal structures and reasons why law in this arena could be beneficial. Among other reasons, law could facilitate treaty effectiveness along the dimensions this Article identifies; enhance treaty legitimacy by ensuring that decisionmakers are accountable to the relevant stakeholders; and foster rule of law values such as certainty and procedural stability, which could aid public and private participants alike.Ultimately, the facts the Article describes present a choice: International law can respond in real time to business roles in treaty production, or it can let those roles evolve as they will, with uncertain and possibly enduring results.