The corporate context of private prisons

This article deals with the growing interest in the privatization of correctional institutions. It focuses on the corporate context of this trend because modern privatization is being done by corporations which have been formed specifically for this purpose or are specialized subsidiaries of large conglomerates. The article reviews the theoretial, legal, political, regulatory, economic, management, and labor issues involved in corporate privatization, taking into consideration the aspects of organizational climate and corporate deviance. Finally, the article points out that corporate involvement in the private management of correctional facilities should be analyzed carefully and taken into consideration in the privatization debate.     

The legal aspects of corporate computer forensic investigations

The use of computer forensics was previously limited mainly to law enforcement agencies. However, UK organisations are increasingly undertaking computer forensics activities for incidents such as fraud, money laundering, accessing or distributing indecent images, harassment, industrial spying and identity theft amongst others. In this paper we examine the legal aspects of UK corporate computer forensic investigations.     

论企业合规检察主导的中国路径

通过对企业合规检察面向的谱系梳理可以发现,无论是对合规总体宏观的理论论证、试点决策、规范制定,还是就合规具体试点的推进方式、进度调控和领域调整,检察主导已成为中国企业合规的鲜明特色.企业合规检察主导的内生动力和深层根源涉及三个方面:主体认知自觉,即新形势下对检察工作省思后的创新探索和职能延伸;法理依据证成,基于对合规"...     

中国企业赴美国上市的法律风险和对策

随着大量中国企业赴美国上市,与之相关的法律风险问题也逐渐暴露。当前,中国企业在美国上市的法律风险主要包括集团诉讼风险、证券违法违规处罚风险、退市风险、做空风险和中介机构欺诈风险。因此,中国企业赴美上市应充分了解、熟悉和掌握美国资本市场的相关法律和监管要求,并完善公司治理结构、内部控制和信息披露制度,以及提高应对集团诉讼的能力。     

The legal profession of China in a globalized world: innovations and new challenges

ABSTRACT

The legal profession is undergoing fundamental changes; and this is the case not just in established legal markets. Based on a state-of-the-art sketch, this paper identifies and analyzes the latest innovation initiatives and alternative business models in China’s legal profession. It finds that, propelled by market demands and benefiting from technological advancements, the provision of legal services has become highly versatile today, giving rise to various alternative service providers, especially the rapidly rising online legal service portals. Because they are technically not law firms, the exclusivity requirements on lawyer ownership and legal service provision are not applicable to them. In the meantime, the competition for large corporate clients and lucrative business transactions is fierce and will continue to be so, not only within the club of big Chinese corporate law firms, but also between Chinese law firms and international law firms globally. In this course, some leading big corporate law firms in China are observed to have creatively incorporated key corporate features in running their business and compensating their partners, effectively deviating from the partnership?+?pure legal services regulation. Such market realities question the necessity and effect of the regulatory restrictions on law firm legal form and ownership structure, and call for an agenda for related research in the future.     

公司的人权责任

除了履行对股东的法定义务外 ,现代公司还应承担相应的社会责任 ,其中首要的是人权责任。公司承担人权责任 ,具有法理上的依据 ,也符合公司的长远利益。应当通过官方立法、社会引导和公司自律等措施 ,促使公司积极承担起对其员工、消费者、驻地居民的权利和环境保护等公共利益的责任     

董事补偿制度研究

在现代市场经济中,公司的经营者面临着越来越严重的法律责任风险。对于那些恪守诚实信用原则、为公司和股东利益而作为的董事,有必要设计风险转移机制来分散其部分法律责任风险;董事责任保险、董事补偿就是比较有效的两种制度设计。其中,董事补偿制度是由公司所提供的一种激励机制。董事补偿包括法定补偿和任意补偿两类。为了激励董事为公司和股东的利益而努力工作,我国公司立法应确立该制度。     

The legal aspects of corporate e-mail investigations

The undertaking of e-mail investigations was previously limited mainly to law enforcement agencies. However, UK organisations are increasingly undertaking e-mail investigation activities for incidents such as fraud, accessing or distributing indecent images and harassment amongst others. Organisations are also increasingly using computer forensic analysts to search through e-mail archives in order to gather evidence relating to e-mail misuse. In this paper we examine the legal aspects of UK corporate e-mail investigations.     

Working for Corporate Actors: Social Change and Elite Attorneys in Chicago

Elite attorneys have been the objects of social scientific study and speculation for many years. This article contributes to that body of thought by reporting some of the results of a research project that studied 59 members of Chicago's corporate actor legal elite-the lawyers who serve the city's major business, social, civic, political, and cultural organizations.
The article briefly defines the elite studied and the design of the overall re-search project. It then focuses on the working situations of these lawyers and the professional roles they play for their respective corporate actors. A division of legal labor that is discovered to separate house counsel from law firm partners among the elite is analyzed in some depth.
Since the professional roles of these elite attorneys differ from those de-scribed by other social scientists earlier, the article concludes by offering a theory to explain this apparent social change. By tapping recent discussions of the coming of postliberal society, it suggests that corporate actors engineer this new division of legal labor for their attorneys in response to the complex new legal problems posed by institutional changes in the larger society.     

法人治理结构下公立医院法治建设策略研究

为解决医院法人治理结构利益兼容和决策效力、效果问题,需推行公立医院法治建设策略。分析公立医院现状、主要问题、应对策略和依法治国大政方针的要求,推进公立医院法治建设刻不容缓。公立医院当前的主要问题为:组织结构松散,处理纷繁的法律事务低效,认知理念不均衡,风险发酵等。提出行之有效的策略,借助四种组织架构评价,对照合规管理要求,明确工作重点并分析投入产出,为公立医院法治建设观大势、谋全局,有效解决医院法人治理关注问题。     

The Integration of Law into Global Business Solutions: The Rise,Transformation, and Potential Future of the Big Four Accountancy Networks in the Global Legal Services Market

Using a unique data set comprised of original research of both the corporate Web sites of the Big Four—PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY—and their affiliated law firms, as well as archival material from the legal and accountancy press, this article documents the rise and transformation of the Big Four legal service lines since the enactment of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002. Moreover, it demonstrates that there are good reasons to believe that these sophisticated players will be even more successful in penetrating the corporate legal services market in the decades to come, as that market increasingly matures in a direction that favors the integration of law into a wider category of business solutions that these globally integrated multidisciplinary practices now champion. We conclude with some preliminary observations about the implications of the reemergence of the Big Four legal networks for the legal profession.     

Advancing Direct Corporate Accountability in International Human Rights Law: The Role of State-Owned Enterprises

Resorting to the immensely state-centric international legal system to regulate corporate human rights abuses is often viewed as inadequate. Among many proposals aiming at filling the international regulatory gaps, imposing international human rights obligations directly on corporations is a bold one, which, due to profound doctrinal and practical challenges, is yet to be materialized. However, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), given their prima facie “state–business nexus” that blurs the traditional public–private divide, might provide a renewed opportunity to push forward the “direct international corporate accountability” campaign. This study investigates whether SOEs represent a golden chance for direct corporate accountability in the international legal regime. This study provides a legal analysis supported by case law, and by comparative and empirical research when appropriate. After providing a definitional account of SOEs, it examines the legal status of SOEs under international law. Then, in the reverse direction, it proceeds to explore if the state–business nexus of SOEs as non-state actors could render the argument toward direct international corporation accountability more convincing. Major findings reveal that SOEs, to a limited extent, represent a renewed opportunity to rethink direct corporate accountability under international law.     

国际航空犯罪法人刑事责任及其国内立法转化研究

2010年《北京公约》和《北京议定书》首次规定了国际航空犯罪法人责任,法人责任以法人的高级管理人员代表法人实施劫持航空器等国际航空犯罪为要件,法人为此承担刑事、民事或行政责任。公约对法人犯罪及其责任的立法需要转化为国内法才能适用。世界各国国内法对法人犯罪及其责任的态度差别较大,英国、加拿大、法国等国刑法规定有航空犯罪的法人刑事责任,德国国内法规定有航空犯罪的法人行政责任,意大利刑法规定有航空犯罪的法人民事责任,我国仅在个别航空犯罪中规定有法人犯罪及其刑事责任。我国法人犯罪及其刑事责任的立法和理论具有较强的包容性,可在我国刑法中取消法人犯罪法定化限制,全面规定包括航空犯罪在内的法人犯罪及其刑事责任。     

African corporate lawyering and globalization

Influenced by processes of globalization and localization, many fields of social and commercial practice – including legal services – across Africa are undergoing rapid transformation. It should come as no surprise that these processes of globalization and transformation include the ongoing transformation of corporate lawyering. Lawyers from Johannesburg to Algiers – not to mention Khartoum and Ouagadougou – are experiencing and participating in rapid global change in their profession and everyday work. This article identifies some of the questions and issues that emerge from this process, as well as providing a vignette of the South African corporate legal sector and tentatively outlining the emergence of an African corporate lawyering field. It does so in order to propose a research agenda into the trends and potential pathways of growth in this field. It does so in four steps, moving from a theoretical frame to one of the Global South to a portrait of the South African jurisdiction and ending with an agenda for African corporate lawyering.     

European Corporate Laws, Regulatory Competition and Path Dependence

Beyond the well-known discussion in regard to the Cassis de Dijon of the European Court of Justice, implying the mutual recognition of national product regulations, the topic of mutual recognition and regulatory competition has emerged again in the realm of European corporate laws (“Centros” of the ECJ in 1999). Can effective competition among European corporate laws be expected? In the US a broad discussion has developed whether the existing competition process among US corporate laws leads to permanent legal improvements by legal innovations or to a race to the bottom. Beyond this discussion a new point has been raised recently: the possibility and importance of path dependence as a potential problem for the efficacy of competition among corporate laws (lock-ins). For the analysis of this problem we apply the concept of technological paradigms and trajectories to legal rules in corporate law and introduce “legal paradigms,” which direct the search for better legal solutions in certain directions and might be stabilized by certain factors (esp. complementarities to other legal rules) leading to considerable path dependence effects. Our results show that path dependence might play a crucial role for competition among European corporate laws, even if the principle of mutual recognition would be introduced to corporate laws in the EU, implying that competition among European corporate laws might be difficult and sluggish. Consequently the question arises whether additional meta-rules should be established that might mitigate the problem of path dependence and lock-ins in regulatory competition in corporate law.     

论“公有公共设施”之界定

公有公共设施设置或管理上的瑕疵导致的损害由国家承担赔偿责任已是学术界的共识。公有公共设施不仅包括国家所有的公共设施，也应包括私人所有而由公法人管理的公共设施。“特定目的使用”不能成为免除国家承担公有公共设施损害赔偿责任的理由。在建公有设施在一定条件下也应属于公有公共设施。公有公共设施应包括它的附属设备、设施。这种设施包括动产与不动产，特定条件下的自然物也应属于其范畴。     

Legal Advice Privilege and its Relevance to Corporations

This article considers whether the rationale for legal advice privilege applies to corporations. It examines the rationale for legal advice privilege in the aftermath of the disagreement between the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords in the Three Rivers litigation, and argues that the rule of law rationale for advice privilege endorsed by the House of Lords is based largely on the needs and behavior of individuals. The paper examines the case for recognising advice privilege for corporations. Recent developments in corporate law and governance, especially in relation to directors' duties, have arguably reduced the need for a corporate privilege. Public and large private companies in particular already have sufficient incentives to obtain accurate legal advice about their affairs even without a privilege. There are also sound policy reasons for restricting the right of corporations to claim legal advice privilege given its costs to the administration of justice.     

关于对冲基金的若干法律问题研究

对冲基金的法律关系是指在对冲基金的活动过程中各当事人之间依据对冲基金法律规范所形成的权利与义务关系。对冲基金的法律形式，即对冲基金存在的法律形态。在全球范围内，目前对冲基金的法律形式主要有契约型、公司型和有限舍伙型三种，且各个对冲基金的具体投资风格和投资策略也各异，然而，所有对冲基金的法律运作程序和运作模式基本相同。就其性质而言,对冲基金属于信托，但又是信托发展的新层次。     

利用公司债券开展并购的法律空间

利用公司债券开展并购颇具经济价值,亟待发展,但目前学界对其关注甚少。尽管目前我国债券市场相对不发达,债券参与并购缺乏直接的可操作性的法律规定,但通过分析现有法规仍可发现利用公司债券开展并购的巨大法律空间。在证监会新近确立的“大力发展债券”的政策背景下,利用债券开展并购的法律空间将会不断拓展。     

Professional Innovation: Corporate Lawyers and Private Lawmaking

Through an intensive examination of the development and diffusion of a new legal device—the shareholder rights' plan or poison pill—this article demonstrates the entrepreneurial, lawmaking role of corporate lawyers. This study case suggests that corporate lawyers may act as legal entrepreneurs, developing and promoting new legal devices and strategies on behalf of actual and potential clients. If affirmed by the courts, these devices or techniques are rapidly diffused thereby contributing to the creation of new legal knowledge. The creation and successful defense of the shareholder rights' plan led to both new caselaw and statute law. In this way, corporate practitioners contribute to the creation of new legal knowledge, suggesting a bottom-up approach to knowledge creation rather than the conventional top-down view. It is suggested that legal innovations like the shareholder rights' plan are more likely to be developed in newer firms than in established firms and in specialized firms than general service law firms.