Recent developments in employee benefits

The latter part of 1996 and the first part of 1997 produced continuing changes to the laws concerning employee benefits, as both Congress and the courts continued to focus on this area of the law. This article highlights some of the more important developments during the period with particular focus upon those of concern to the insurance industry.     

Recent developments in privacy legislation

In this article, Ruth Carey takes a critical look at recent privacy-of-personal-information legislation drafted in three Canadian provinces--Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. The article begins with a historical overview of international legal instruments and other privacy guidelines, and the Canadian experience with privacy protection. It then critically analyzes the provincial initiatives in the context of the federal Personal Information Protection and and Electronic Documents Act and accepted privacy principles. The article goes on to highlight certain types of legislative provisions of particular interest to people with HIV/AIDS and those who advocate on their behalf. It concludes that the numerous legislative initiatives underway in Canada provide an opportunity to alter the public discourse around the virus, thereby improving the lives of people with HIV/AIDS.     

Recent developments in medical law

The most spectacular aspect is the extremely rapid expansion of medical law. Even if there is a close connection between developments in medicine and in law, the question must be asked as to what extent new discoveries and advances in medicine play a dominant role here, and to what extent the emphasis is on the further development of law. How advances in medicine can give rise to new legal problems was most impressively demonstrated some time ago by the discussion about cerebral death. In view of the progress made in the field of re-animation and intensive care, the current question is whether or not the physician's duties and rights to maintain life should be limited in hopeless cases when patients are incapable of making decisions themselves. This is demonstrated in particular by the discussion about the binding character of "patient testaments" in which healthy subjects declare that they do not want treatment under such circumstances. The decisive factor will continue to be the presumptive will of the patient at the respective time, and this will have to be ascertained considering all circumstances prevailing at that time. New questions with regard to the ethical and legal limitation of the technically feasible also arise from the possibility of culturing embryos from legal abortions or extracorporally fertilized ova to obtain transplants, and from the possibility of implanting extracorporally fertilized ova into the uterus, perhaps that of a "hired childbearing wet-nurse." In addition to ethical and legal problems, questions of parentage would arise here similar to those already of current interest in connection with artificial heterologous insemination. For physicians practicing these methods, questions concerning liability and the limitation of professional secrecy vis-à-vis the semen donor might become the issue of law suits in the near future. Current problems of "unsuccessful sterilization" and nonperformance of an abortion through the physician's fault although abortion was indicated for eugenic reasons are, on the other hand, primarily due to the fact that the law--possibility even for acceptable reasons--establishes legal obligations for the physician which, in the last analysis, aim at preventing human life from coming into being.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Recent developments in writing sequence determination

Two modifications of the Igoe-Reynolds lift technique for examination of line margins to determine the sequence of intersecting ball-point pen strokes are proposed. One for handwriting-typewriting intersections and the other extending the lift technique to ball-point pen writings of some age that are otherwise insensitive to the lift efforts.Attention is also directed to the increased usefulness of spectular light reflection examination resulting from changes in writing materials and instruments, particularly as applied to handwriting-typewriting sequence determination. An inexpensive, readily improvised vertical illuminator is described suitable for use with stereomicroscopes and cameras.     

Recent developments in medicine and law

This article addresses important developments in the field of medicine and law during the period of September 2000 through August 2001. It does not discuss every reported case or piece of legislation but surveys some of the more significant developments in the medicine and law arena.     

Recent developments in German corporate governance

This paper provides an overview of the German corporate governance system. We review the governance role of large shareholders, creditors, the product market and the supervisory board. We also discuss the importance of mergers and acquisitions, the market in block trades, and the lack of a hostile takeover market. Given that Germany is often referred to as a bank-based economy, we pay particular attention to the role of the universal banks (Hausbanken). We show that the German system is characterised by a market for partial corporate control, large shareholders and bank/creditor monitoring, a two-tier (management and supervisory) board with co-determination between shareholders and employees on the supervisory board, a disciplinary product–market, and corporate governance regulation largely based on EU directives but with deep roots in the German codes and legal doctrine. Another important feature of the German system is its corporate governance efficiency criterion which is focused on the maximisation of stakeholder value rather than shareholder value. However, the German corporate governance system has experienced many important changes over the last decade. First, the relationship between ownership or control concentration and profitability has changed over time. Second, the pay-for-performance relation is influenced by large shareholder control: in firms with controlling blockholders and when a universal bank is simultaneously an equity- and debtholder, the pay-for-performance relation is lower than in widely held firms or blockholder-controlled firms. Third, since 1995 several major regulatory initiatives (including voluntary codes) have increased transparency and accountability.     

Recent developments in Swiss health law

This article highlights recent developments in health law in Switzerland. It covers statutory developments in health care insurance, sterilisation and genetic testing, and cases, one dealing with the reimbursement of medicines and another one on the limitation of the number of physicians reimbursed by the compulsory scheme of health insurance.