Good Faith,Flawed Assets and the Emasculation of the UK Anti‐Deprivation Rule

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Belmont Park Investments Pty Ltd v BNY Corporate Trustee Services Ltd and Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc is of major significance to lenders, especially those in the global structured finance market. This case confirms the validity of commonly used insolvency‐triggered secured‐priority flip clauses, and, more generally, suggests a dramatically reduced role for the common law anti‐deprivation principle. The decision may not fully resolve market uncertainty, however, given the particular analysis adopted in the case itself (analysed here) and its divergence from the US statutory approach to the same principle.     

The Paradox of Constituent Power.The Ambiguous Self‐Constitution of the European Union

Abstract. The French and Dutch referenda on the adoption of a European Constitutional Treaty highlight a remarkable ambiguity in the self‐constitution of a polity, which can be viewed as both constitution by and of a collective self. This ambiguity is a fundamental feature of polities in general, and the European Union in particular. Rather than suppressing this ambiguity, democracy—and a fortiori a European democracy worth its name—institutionalises it as the guiding principle of political action. As will transpire, the conceptual and normative problems raised by political self‐constitution are linked to self‐attribution, i.e., the conditions under which a collective ascribes legislation to itself.     

Corporations in Court: Big Business Litigation in U. S. Federal Courts, 1971–1991

This article provides an overview of federal litigation involving the largest 2,000 U. S. corporations over the period 1971–91. Reporting from a unique data set of the authors'construction, it finds that althugh the aggregate volume of business litigation grew during the 1970s and early 1980s, it has actually been declining in recent years in all major categories of cases; business-related litigation is heavily concentrated, with an extremely limited number of business "mega-litigants" accounting for most of the activity; this concentration is particularly evident in tort, with the result that the tort trend line outside the concentration is actually flat or declining; a good deal of the growth in litigation outside the tort area can be attributed to business itself; and big business wins overwhelmingly, as plaintiff and defendant, in cases that involve it. The general applicability of these findings is limited by the data's restriction to federal court litigation and the structure of the Integrated Federal Court Data Base from which the authors'data set was constructed. This granted, the report is by far the most comprehensive treatment of U. S. big business litigation to date, and its findings are strikingly at odds with the premises of much current policy discussion.     

从UCITA论我国电子合同法律规制之建立

电子形式是一种商业交易载体 ,而区别于以电子形式签订的需要物流配送的合同的电子交易本身。电子交易本身与传统的实物和知识产权交易相较有不同的特征 ,我国电子商务立法应借鉴UCITA的经验 ,对电子合同的适用范围、电子代理、电子自助、电子错误、电子鉴证、一般零售授权、电脑程序的修改、系统使用合同以及电子合同的管辖权等问题 ,作出明确的规定 ,以完善我国的合同法     

论我国司法鉴定人资格制度的完善

我国司法鉴定组织体系是在司法实践中形成的部门分设体制,在鉴定机构设置的原则、布局上呈现出多元化特点,存在司法机关内部鉴定机构、具有行政权背景的鉴定机构和面向社会服务的鉴定机构等三种类型的鉴定机构,由此导致对司法鉴定人实行职业资格与执业资格制度管理方面存在不尽完善之处。为确保司法鉴定人具有较高的业务水平、执业能力和规范执业,提高鉴定质量,有必要实行复合制的鉴定准入制度、建立健全鉴定业务的经常性培训交流与考核机制、建立法官对鉴定结论的实体审查制度和建立司法鉴定专家库等。     

商标转让的理论建构与制度设计

作为商标这一符号的所指,商誉乃是其不可分割的组成部分。传统商标转让规则,无论要求商标连同商誉转让抑或允许其单独转让,其表述本身就背离了符号学基本原理,在适用过程中最终都转换为,要求商标连同营业转让或允许其自由转让。不进行这样的转换,上述规则根本就无从适用,更遑论合理与否。历史地看,商标转让制度经历了从连同转让向自由转让的模式转变。在当代,包括我国在内的各主要国家和地区实际适用的都是自由转让模式,这也正是巴黎公约和TRIPs协定所持基本立场。在我国,出于保护消费者利益的考虑,立法者还为商标受让人设定了品质保证义务。表面看来,上述规定系商标品质保证功能的具体体现,实则违背商标制度的运行机理,理当删除。     

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND FAMILY COURT REFORM

Creating a unified family court, or any type of family court reform, may have only a minimal impact if it simply changes the structure of how judges do business rather than addresses the structure of the child welfare system itself. The authors argue that family court reform must place social justice at its center. First, they discuss profound flaws in the child welfare system that make poor and minority families especially vulnerable to coercive state intervention. Second, they describe two approaches to child welfare cases–family systems theory and therapeutic justice–that can help to guide reform efforts directed at addressing these structural flaws. Finally, they suggest ways in which family law scholarship can assist in creating a social justice agenda for family court reform.     

论合同自由原则与合同正义原则的统一性

自由、公平是保障交易活动正常进行不可缺少的要素。合同法作为规范市场经济活动的法则必 须将合同自由与合同正义有机地统一起来,才能维护正常的市场交易活动。合同自由原则是维 持自由竞争的基础,合同正义原则是自由竞争的必要限制,只有将当事人的合意与上升为法律的 国家意志有机统一,体现法律效力,才能践行真正的合同自由。中国对两个原则统一的全面认识 体现在新制定的合同法上:既集中体现了合同自由的精神实质,又始终贯穿了合同正义的要旨。 但还应及时修正个别条款中不能科学体现两个原则的不足,才能有效促进市场经济交易的正常 发展。     

Legal Compliance in Street‐Level Bureaucracy: A Study of UK Housing Officers

Street‐level bureaucratic theory is now at a fairly mature stage. The focus on street‐level bureaucrats as ultimate policymakers is now as familiar as it is important. Likewise, the parallel sociolegal study of the implementation of public law in public organizations has demonstrated the inevitable gap between law‐in‐the‐books and law‐in‐action. Yet, the success of these advances comes at the potential cost of us losing sight of the importance of law itself. This article analyzes some empirical data on the decision making about one legal concept—vulnerability in UK homelessness law. Our analysis offers two main contributions. First, we argue that, when it comes to the implementation of law, the legal abilities and propensities of the bureaucrats must be taken into account. Bureaucrats' abilities to understand legal materials make a difference to the likelihood of legal compliance. Second, we must also pay attention to the character of the legal provisions. Where a provision is simple, it is more likely to facilitate legal knowledge and demands nothing of bureaucrats in terms of legal competence. Where the provision is also inoffensive and liveable, it is less likely to act as an impediment to legal conscientiousness.     

Inclusive Legal Positivism,Legal Interpretation,and Value‐Judgments

In this paper I put forward some arguments in defence of inclusive legal positivism. The general thesis that I defend is that inclusive positivism represents a more fruitful and interesting research program than that proposed by exclusive positivism. I introduce two arguments connected with legal interpretation in favour of my thesis. However, my opinion is that inclusive positivism does not sufficiently succeed in estranging itself from the more traditional legal positivist conceptions. This is the case, for instance, with regard to the value‐freedom principle, which is commonly accepted by inclusive positivist scholars. In contrast with this approach, I try to show, in the concluding section, how a constructivistic version of inclusive positivism could legitimately acknowledge the presence of value‐judgments in the cognitive activities of jurists and legal theorists.     

EU VAT frauds

The paper analyzes the VAT frauds issues in the European Union after the abolition of the internal customs. All the suggested solutions based on the origin principle create distortions in the “one market” and have a doubtful efficiency. The reverse-charge regime for all business to business transactions joint with VAT at the last stage also creates heavy discriminations. The current system based on the destination principle joint with ad hoc measures—such as specific reverse-charge, rebate and margin regime under evidence that VAT due has been paid, joint/several liability…—and a consistent information-exchange-system may provide a less distorting solution.     

部分履行的法律问题研究——《合同法》第72条的法解释论

部分履行构成对全面履行原则的违反。判断某一履行是否为部分履行,要考察有待进行的履行本身是否具有整体性。债权人拒绝受领债务人部分履行的拒绝权属于一种法定的对债权人的保障措施,其功能在于使债权人可以拒绝受领而不构成债权人迟延。但是,债权人的拒绝权也受到一定的限制,当部分履行不损害债权人的利益时,后者不得拒绝。如果债权人受领部分履行,将导致债的部分消灭,但是不影响债权人采用其他措施来维护自己的利益。     

改革中国银行业监管体制的法律与实践

中国银行业监管体制的改革已经取得了伟大的成就 ,但是我们不能否认它本身还存在着一些不完善之处 ,为了改革现行的银行业监管体制 ,国务院决定设立中国银行业监督管理委员会。设立脱离于中央银行的独立金融监管机构符合世界金融监管制度发展的趋势。     

Tolerance and Liberal Justice

Tolerance, the mere “putting up” with disapproved behaviour and practices, is often considered a too negative and passive engagement with difference in the liberal constitutional state. In response, liberal thinkers have either discarded tolerance, or assimilated it to the moral and legal precepts of liberal justice. In contradistinction to these approaches I argue that there is something distinctive and valuable about tolerance that should not be undermined by more ambitious, rights‐based models of social cooperation. I develop a conception of tolerance as a complementary principle and an interim value that is neither incompatible with, nor reducible to, rights‐based liberalism. Tolerance represents a particular, non‐communitarian expression of the general dictum that the liberal state, having released its citizens into liberty, rests on social presuppositions it cannot itself guarantee.     

Freedom and Sovereignty a Fatal Relationship Outlined with Jean-Luc Nancy and Marquis De Sade

Sovereignty and freedom are interlinked in a manner of both ambivalence and interdependence. Neither can sovereignty confirm itself without presupposing for itself a pure state of freedom; nor can freedom conceive and realise itself without interweaving with sovereignty. Both concepts collide with each other as sovereignty usually signifies a certain social or cultural power or order; and freedom regularly is related to a sovereign subjectivity. Therefore, the question is: how far might sovereignty serve as a source of freedom that, at the same time, has to be limited by this freedom itself. When the sovereign (subject) defines where the limits of freedom are, he will mostly define the limits of experiencing such freedom for all those who have to follow his decision on the limit. Further, if the free (sovereign) subject itself defines its own limits, it will supposedly end up rejecting its interweaving with any other subjectivity beyond its own. The problem remains: both sovereignty and freedom cannot be realised if they are already limited.     

反垄断普遍主义法理论、法原则探究

反垄断法作为市场经济社会的“经济宪法,”维护近现代商品生产社会的市场经济秩序、“有效竞争”市场结构。在历经百年的反垄断立法和实践中,确立了“本身违法”原则、合理原则、域外适用的“效果原则”。我国反垄断法的制定,应科学借鉴反垄断普遍主义法理论、法原则,规范我国社会主义市场经济秩序、竞争关系。     

自然垄断行业改革研究--从自然垄断行业是否为合理垄断的角度出发

当今世界各国在原有的自然垄断行业引入竞争机制并不意味着对自然垄断理论本身的否定,相反它是从动态角度遵循该理论的体现.试图完全抛弃自然垄断理论的实践已被证明是错误的.对于自然垄断行业的改革,必须科学界定自然垄断行业的自然垄断业务部分和非自然垄断业务部分.自然垄断业务部分宜采寡头垄断的市场结构;非自然垄断业务部分则应适用一般的市场竞争规则.     

信用证欺诈例外原则研究--从加拿大一起案例看我国司法实践中应注意的问题

为抑制信用证欺诈、维护诚实信用的国际贸易环境 ,信用证欺诈例外原则的运用需突破信用证的独立性 ,将信用证交易与基础合同交易联系起来考查。这是对信用证独立原则的例外。加拿大最高法院于 1 987年审结一起有关信用证欺诈例外原则的著名案例BankofNovaScodiaappellantv .Angelica -WhitewearLTD .andAngelicaCorpo rationRespondents,成功地总结了英美法国家处理信用证欺诈问题的立法、判例。本文从介绍该案入手 ,结合国际公约和现有立法、判例、法学理论 ,分析信用证欺诈例外原则确立的必要性及适用条件 ,以期为我国在新形势下完善有关信用证欺诈的立法、司法作理论上的探讨     

Revisiting country of origin principle: Challenges related to regulating e-commerce in the European Union

The article analyses the country of origin principle of information society services in the light of harmonisation and unification efforts undertaken by the European lawgiver. Although the country of origin principle remains the key element of the construction of freedom to provide information society services, the principle itself suffers a number of both explicit and implicit restrictions which render its practical application a serious challenge. The difficulty is posed by the fact that the Electronic Commerce Directive fails to expressly specify both the scope of harmonisation as regards the principle, and the level of harmonisation of the directive itself. Furthermore, it is understood differently by private international lawyers. In the eDate Advertising case the ECJ ruled that the principle is not a conflict-of-laws rule, neither does it require implementation to the national legal systems in this shape. This is not to mean, however, that the debate over the function of the country of origin principle in private international law is over. Last but not least, there are many different types of country of origin principles applicable to various types of services provided via the Internet. This multitude of country of origin principles is perhaps the greatest weakness the regulatory approach adopted by the European lawmaker.     

Good Faith and the Ubiquity of the ‘Relational’ Contract

The judgment of Leggatt J in Yam Seng Pte Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd shows the common belief that the English law of contract does not have a doctrine of good faith to be mistaken. That law does not have a general principle of good faith, but its doctrine of good faith, articulated through numerous specific duties, is more suitable for the interpretation of contracts according to the intentions of the parties than a general principle which invites the imposition of exogenous standards. That Yam Seng involved a relational contract does not mean that paternalistic exogenous standards should be imposed. It means that the good faith obligations essential even to a commercial contract of this sort must be implied in order to give efficacy to the fundamentally co‐operative contractual relationship.