仲裁制度的经济分析——以纠纷解决方式的成本比较和竞争互动作为考察点

在一个纠纷解决机制的经济学视角下,仲裁和诉讼作为其中的两种主要公共产品,如何在其竞合的商事纠纷解决领域实现互补并进而形成良性的竞争,将是使得商事纠纷解决秩序有效率运转的一个途径。基于纠纷解决需求的信息不对称模型和仲裁诉讼的寡头竞争格局模型的建构,可以得出关于仲裁定价的分析,并能为如何协同诉讼提供量化依据。     

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.     

The incidence of alleged sexual abuse in 603 family court cases

The conflict and animosity that sometimes accompanies child custody disputes can give rise to the propagation of allegations of child sexual abuse. To characterize the magnitude of the problem, the present study attempted to determine whether and to what extent child sexual abuse allegations predominate in family court litigation. The entire one-year caseload of a county family court docket was systematically reviewed and coded. Methodical evaluation of 603 family court files yielded base rates of pertinent allegations and other information profiling the cases. The findings did not support the contention that sexual abuse allegations are commonplace in child custody disputes. Sexual abuse allegations were made in 2% of cases in which custody or access was contested and in only 0.8% of the cases overal. Implications of the findings for future research were discussed.The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Honorable William R. Campbell and Barbara Scott, Clerk of Court for the South Carolina Fifth Judicial Circuit, as well as the contributions of Angie Newton, Frank Robinson, and Kimberly Ellis in the data collection process.     

CIVIL LITIGATION IN ILLINOIS TRIAL COURTS

This article analyzes civil litigation in Illinois trial courts for the years 1965, 1970, and 1975 using county-level data. Of particular interest is the relationship between civil litigation on one hand and socioeconomic and political culture indicators on the other. Borrowing from the idea of a social development perspective, the analysis emphasizes rural-urban differences. It shows that higher rates of litigation tend to be characteristic of more urbanized, somewhat more culturally modern, and slightly more industrialized counties; and that lower rules tend to be characteristic of more rural, agricultural, and somewhat more traditional counties. Although the data are limited, the analysis also finds some broad rural-urban differences in trial court business. Overall, socioeconomic indicators appear to be more important, with political culture playing only a secondary or tertiary role.     

Empirical analysis of civil litigation determinants: The Case of Spain

This paper analyses the determinants of civil litigation in Spain drawing on the Law and Economics approach. Using a panel data for 50 Spanish provinces, this study makes a first exploratory approach to empirically investigate the effect of the 2000 Civil Procedural Law Reform on the demand for civil justice over the period 1995–2010, controlling for other determinants of litigation such as the economic growth, the expansion of the Bar, the number of judges, and other socio-demographic characteristics. According to the results, the growing number of civil cases filed in Spain in recent years seems to be a consequence of the combination of the law reform, relevant socio-economic factors, and most importantly the economic recession.     

经济法与公益诉讼的契合性分析

实体法与程序法作为矛盾的对立双方相互依赖、互为前提。没有实体法就没有程序法;没有程序法,实体法也没有存在的必要。经济法是在生产高度社会化的历史条件下,为适应国家广泛调节社会经济的需要而逐渐形成为以社会公共利益为本位的部门法;与之相适应,经济法程序始终贯穿着对社会公益的关注,以有效保护社会公共利益不受侵害为主线。公益诉讼是有关组织和个人依据法律的规定,对由于违反法律而给国家、社会公共利益造成事实上损害或潜在损害的行为向法院起诉,由法院追究违法者的法律责任的诉讼活动。所以,公益诉讼作为经济法的内部生命的表现有效地维护了经济法的切实实施,经济法与公益诉讼之间具有天然的契合性。     

Business Litigation in the Transition: A Portrait of Debt Collection in Russia

Russian firms are drowning in debt. Managers are increasingly turning to the courts for help. Drawing on a database of 100 non-payments cases decided by three courts in 2000, the article explores the parameters of this litigation and the motivations for filing lawsuits. The analysis shows that the docket is dominated by small-scale disputes between trading partners with short shared histories, suggesting that those who have long-term, trust-based relationships avoid the courts. Along with fear of disrupting ongoing relationships, the disinclination to use the courts is also motivated by a reluctance to open up transactions to state scrutiny. By contrast, the petty disputes that are brought to court tend to be simple and, therefore, managers are willing to risk exposure to the state. Indeed, in a world in which firms manipulate their financial records to create the impression of no income in order to avoid taxes (often putting bogus debts on the books), some of these managers bring cases even when there is little chance of recovering the debt because the decision provides convincing evidence to the tax authorities that the debt is bona fide.     

Who Files Suit? Legal Mobilization and Torture Violations in Europe

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is the most active international court. After decades with few allegations of human rights abuses, the ECHR docket expanded in the 1990s. Paradoxically, long‐standing democracies can have standardized violation rates of the prohibition against torture that compare to transitional democracies that struggle to protect rights. Yet it is implausible that human rights abuses increased or that established democracies engage in more torture than new democracies. Instead variations in legal mobilization generate the surge and puzzling distribution of European judgments. I argue that discrepancies between the incidence of torture and litigation reflect variations in support structures, where declared violations can reflect the level of support that individuals receive in pursuing claims rather than the incidence of torture. This dynamic is most pronounced for foreign nationals, who typically possess fewer resources than citizens to access legal institutions and encounter popular and official hostility. As a result, much European litigation concerning torture in long‐standing democracies is transnational in character.     

Markets and Corporate Conflict: A Substitution-Cost Approach to Business Litigation

This paper examines the phenomenon of conflict escalaton in business relations. A theory of when conflict between firms will proceed from informal relationship-preserving norms to more formal and destructive end games involving litigation is developed and tested. The central theoretical claim is that substitution costs serve as an impediment against the escalation of conflict. Data on market concentration and dollar flows between aggregate markets in the economy are used to develop measures of substitution costs. Measures of substitution costs and trade figures are also used to describe power advantages in markets. The theory is tested through a series of regression models. The main findings are that (1) when substitution costs are high, parties are less likely to escalate conflict and (2) asymmetric market relations result in less conflict escalation than symmetric ones. Empirical analysis indicates that substitution costs are related in predictable and meaningful ways to conflict escalation and business litigation.     

Litigation Migrants

Civil law is enforced primarily via private litigation. One characteristic of private enforcement is that litigation levels tend to cycle between periods of boom and bust. This article builds a theory for explaining this fluctuation, proposing that plaintiffs’ attorneys can be understood as economic migrants. Just as workers cross borders to find jobs, lawyers “move” across case types and jurisdictions to find profitable claims, and case filing numbers increase as a result. Using the recent wage and hour litigation boom as a case study, this article paints an empirical picture of attorney migration and its influence on case filing numbers.     

From tobacco to health care and beyond--a critique of lawsuits targeting unpopular industries.

The 1998 settlement between state Medicaid agencies and the five major tobacco companies heralded a new form of litigation in which individual or government plaintiffs allied with private class action attorneys use economic, political and moral leverage to extract huge settlements from entire industries. Beginning with several class action suits filed in late 1999 against managed care companies by aggrieved HMO enrollees, and continuing with government suits against the paint and handgun industries, this new form of litigation has become a powerful vehicle for plaintiffs to punish unpopular--but entirely legal--industries. In this Note, the author demonstrates that the popular appeal of these suits conceals legal theories of recovery that probably could not survive courtroom scrutiny. The author argues that the thin legal merits of these class action claims are often tolerated by courts, who urge settlement in order to clear their dockets, and by the industries, who regard settlement merely as a cost of doing business. The author concludes that the tobacco litigation and its progeny encourage citizens and the executive branches of government to seek restitution and fundamental social change in the courts after losing in the legislative arena, thus forcing the judiciary branches into the unwise and improper role of policymaker.     

If You Build It,They Will Fill It: The Consequences of Prison Overcrowding Litigation

This article examines the consequences of prison overcrowding litigation for U.S. prisons. We use insights derived from the endogeneity of law perspective to develop expectations about the likely impact of overcrowding litigation on five outcomes: prison admissions, prison releases, spending on prison capacity, prison crowding, and incarceration rates. Using newly available data on prison overcrowding litigation cases joined with panel data on U.S. states from 1971 to 1996, we offer a novel and comprehensive analysis of the impact that overcrowding litigation has had on U.S. prisons. We find that it had no impact on admissions or release rates and did not lead to any reduction in prison crowding. Litigation did, however, lead to an increase in spending on prison capacity and incarceration rates. We discuss the implications of these results for endogeneity of law theory, attempts to achieve reform through litigation, and the politics of prison construction.     

国际商事诉讼中区块链技术证据的运用及中国因应

依托于区块链技术的数字货币为国际商事交往带来了前所未有的变革,已经应用于国际商事诸多领域。但与此同时,数字货币的运用导致国际商事诉讼产生新的困局,即传统证据形式于此类诉讼中作用有限。有鉴于此,区块链技术证据开始逐步进入国际商事诉讼视野。区块链技术证据运用的必要性在于其不仅能够应对数字货币类诉讼的特性,而且能够对传统证据形成有益补充,这正契应了国际商事诉讼的发展需要。区块链技术证据运用的可行性在于,其满足了国际商事诉讼对于证据资格的标准,即满足了真实性、关联性与合法性等标准。区块链技术证据的运用在域外已有诸多实证,但在我国尚处于起步阶段。我国应尽快出台关于区块链技术证据的法律规范,增设"区块链法庭",以此推进区块链技术证据在国际商事诉讼中的进一步应用。     

DIFFUSION OF FRAUD: INTERMEDIATE ECONOMIC CRIME AND INVESTOR DYNAMICS*

Criminologists have studied the spread of fraudulent practices and techniques among perpetrators. This article attempts to contribute to the field by looking at the other side of diffusion, examining the spread of fraud among investors in a case of “intermediate fraud.” Intermediate fraud occurs when fraudulent acts are committed in or by a legitimate business. Using comprehensive archival, interview, and survey data, we analyze a business that exhibited a two‐stage pattern of intermediate fraud: It was created and operated as a legitimate business in the first stage, and then economic crimes were increasingly committed in the second stage. We use diffusion theory to guide our analysis, investigating the ways in which five factors—product attributes, buyer attributes and behavior, seller attributes and behavior, structure of the social network, and method of propagation—influence the adoption and diffusion of investments in oil and gas wells among a population of investors. The case of intermediate fraud is interesting because the factors that contributed to the success of the business in its legitimate stage are the same factors that contributed to the success of the fraud in its illegitimate stage.     

Morality, social norms and the rule of law as transaction cost-saving devices: the case of ancient Athens

The importance of the institutional framework for economic development is widely accepted today and it is duly stressed in the economic literature. The protection of property rights, the enforcement of contracts and an efficient legal system are the pillars of the contemporary rule of law. However, formal institutions cannot function without being internalized by the citizens and without the strong backing of social norms. Morality and social norms are the major elements of the informal institutional structure, the social capital, which is also critical for social welfare and economic development. In this paper we will discuss both the formal and the informal institutional framework of Ancient Athens, which was a free market society with economic problems similar to contemporary market societies. Athenians developed a highly sophisticated legal framework for the protection of private property, the enforcement of contracts and the efficient resolution of disputes. Such an institutional framework functioned effectively, cultivating trust and protecting the security of transactions. This entire system however was based on social norms such as reciprocity, the value of reputation and widely accepted business ethics. Conformity to social norms as well as moral behavior was fostered by social sanction mechanisms (such as stigma) and moral education. The Athenian example is a further proof of the importance of morality and social norms as transaction cost-saving devices even in quite sophisticated legal systems. Their absence or decline leads inevitably to the need for more regulation and litigation and to a growing preference for clear-cut rules instead of discretionary standards. Athenian law was pioneering in the development of rules and institutional mechanisms suitable for the reduction of transaction costs, many of them surviving in the most complex contemporary legal systems.     

跨境电商知识产权风险的应对——以中国电商在美被诉为例

自2012年以来,从事跨境电商业务的中国电子商户持续遭遇来自美国的侵权诉讼,极大地影响了中国电子商务海外业务的拓展。为有效应对跨境电商侵权诉讼、推动我国跨境电商业务的良性发展,一方面,电子商户需要加深对域外知识产权法律及司法程序的了解,强化权利意识,尊重他人知识产权和自己的诉权;另一方面,政府及行业协会也应在协调组织应诉、建立行业规范方面发挥积极作用。同时,我国应积极推动建立和完善规制跨境电商行为的国际协调机制,尝试建立司法协助和联合执法机制,探索利用数字技术加强知识产权侵权防范和监管的新途径,融入以数字化技术推动贸易全球化的浪潮中。     

我国公益诉讼的起诉主体研究

随着我国经济和社会的发展,在我国建立公益诉讼制度是十分必要的。但是,要在我国建立公益诉讼制度,需要解决许多问题。其中,如何确立公益诉讼起诉主体的范围是最为重要的问题,它对确立公益诉讼制度的其他内容具有决定性影响。各国确立公益诉讼起诉主体的理论基础有信托理论、"私人总检察长"理论和监督制约理论。虽然目前我国法学界对公益诉讼起诉主体的范围存在不同的观点,但是,为了确实有效地保护公共利益,我们可以借鉴上述理论基础,将检察机关、行政机关、公益性团体、行业协会和其他社会组织、公民个人确立为公益诉讼的起诉主体。     

美国阶梯式纠纷解决条款执行力问题研究

如何选择一种更快捷、更有效以及更便宜的方式来解决合同纠纷,是国际商事社会如今所面临的挑战。这并不是说要摒弃传统的诉讼和仲裁等争议解决机制,而是指需要用其他替代手段来补充这些机制。本文将以美国为例,对ADR方式作为仲裁或诉讼前置程序的阶梯式纠纷解决条款进行研究,以期提供给当事方最好的争议解决机制来满足维持其彼此间良好关系的特殊需要。     

Quiescence in women's prisons litigation: Some exploratory issues

Despite the increase in prisoner civil rights litigation in the past decades, we know relatively little about the bases of such suits, let alone the differences between male and female litigants. Judging from existing literature, we would expect women to join male litigants in challenging the conditions of their confinement. But it seems that there has been a remarkable quiescence among women prisoners in civil rights litigation. Despite such factors as poor living conditions, overcrowding, internal disciplinary problems, lack of job training programs, and unbalanced racial composition (all positively associated with high civil rights litigation rates), it would seem that women are filing proportionally far fewer suits than their male counterparts. Further, women sue for somewhat different reasons. Using data from one federal district in Illinois and two Illinois prisons, we will argue that, compared to their male counterparts, women do not choose litigation for problem resolution, and we will suggest that gender and organizational constraints may account for much of this quiescence.