Family-owned,limited close corporations and protection of ownership

Protected ownership and freedom of contracts are two basic parts of the institutional framework of successful countries according to Douglass North, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1993. The incentives to make long-term investments are strengthened if ownership rights are protected and freedom of contracts is a basic element in the process of efficient allocation of scarce resources. An important engine in prosperous societies is the family firm. Most companies in these societies can be classified as family firms and a major part of GDP is produced by family businesses. Consequently, how ownership is protected in family firms is an important issue.Three important factors of private ownership of property are the rights to determine use of owned assets, the return generated from them and to transfer the assets at mutually agreeable terms to a new owner(s).The incentives of a founder entrepreneur to put efforts into the establishment of a firm are determined by all the three factors. We will here pay special attention to the third factor, transfer of the ownership of the firm. The founder often places contractual restrictions on such transfers to ensure that the structure of ownership is stable and that the firm stays in the family. The possibility to do so is part of the freedom of contracts and is associated with the extent of ownership held as well as the incentives to invest in new businesses.This paper is primarily about how protection of family ownership can be achieved from a legal point of view and discusses the reasons to enforce these legal relationships in the future for second, third, fourth etc. generations of family owners.     

Zum Regelungsumfang des Art 16 Z 2 LGVÜ/Art 22 Z 2 EuGVVO

Klagen gegen einen internationalen Sportverband, die auf Feststellung der Unwirksamkeit einer Sperre eines bei einem nationalen Sportverband besch?ftigten Trainers von Wettbewerben dieses Sportverbandes und auf Unterlassung von Handlungen, die eine Akkreditierung verhindern bzw erschweren, gerichtet sind, unterliegen der ausschlie?lichen inl?ndischen Gerichtsbarkeit des Sitzstaates; eine Verbindung solcher Klagen mit einer gegen den nationalen Verband gerichteten gleichartigen Klage ist daher unzul?ssig. – Eine damit zusammenh?ngende Schadenersatzklage gegen den internationalen Verband steht auch nicht in dem von Art 6 Nr 1 LGVü geforderten Zusammenhang mit einer Klage gegen den nationalen Verband wegen Aufl?sung des Trainervertrages aufgrund der Sperre.     

Using the state to change society: The example of ‘domestic violence’

North American research on the policing of ‘domestic violence’ has been very influential among policy makers in Great Britain. In particular, research which purports to verify the deterrence value of arrest has prompted the establishment of over thirty domestic violence units in London and similar initiatives elsewhere in Britain. The paper will outline the nature of the traditional police response to ‘family violence’ in London and the nature of the experimental innovations. Changes in police practice with regard to this type of violence will be put in the context of the organizational constraints and possibilities of policing. Finally, changing police responses to domestic violence will be evaluated in terms of the debate over the possibility of using the state or its organs to achieve social change.     

Quantitative analysis of chlorpromazine by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy

A simple and sensitive method is described for quantitative analysis of chlorpromazine in blood, serum, urine and tissue homogenate. The chlorpromazine cation radical produced by adding perchloric acid and 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone to the sample can be detected by the ESR method at room temperature. The sensitivity limit is 10 ng, that is, 20 μl of the solution containing 0.5 μg chlorpromazine/ml. The time needed for the measurement is within 10 min. The chlorpromazine radical thus produced is very stable; for example, 95% of the radical was observed after 24 h. The advantage of this method is discussed by comparing with the ordinary spectrophotometry which requires the purification of the sample.     

Constructing Population Control: Social and Material Factors in Norm Emergence and Diffusion

To demonstrate that norms have independent causal power, constructivists de-emphasise material factors related to state interests and highlight social factors. Similarly, they conceptualise international organisations as autonomous from state influence, and focus on cases featuring non-state actors that stimulate a “tipping point” of norm diffusion among states in advance of state sponsorship. By contrast, this article utilises an historical materialist approach that admits both social and material data to examine the contrasting case of population control. It finds that US corporate foundations, eugenist demographers, feminist birth control activists and related NGOs conceptualised and promoted population control in the United States, at the United Nations, and across developing countries. However, the tipping point of norm diffusion occurred only after the United States publicly advocated population control. Indeed, material and social factors were inextricably bound together.     

Radiographic demonstration of esophageal and tracheal fistulas at autopsy using a contrasting medium that vulcanizes at room temperature

Esophageal and tracheal fistulas, which occur in 0.05% of medicolegal autopsies, were demonstrated in three cases by a postmortem radiographic technique using silicone rubber/lead oxide as a contrasting medium that vulcanizes at room temperature. In one 83-year-old male, a tracheoesophageal fistula was detected, which had developed after surgical repair of an esophageal rupture caused by a flexible fiberoptic endoscope. In a second case, carcinoma of the esophagus in a 78-year-old male had eroded the trachea and arcus of the aorta creating a fatal tracheoesophagoaortic fistula. In a third case, 55-year-old female developed a tracheobrachicephalic artery fistula as a result of an infiltrating cystic adenocarcinoma of the trachea, resulting in a fatal hemorrhage into the trachea. The results of this study indicate that diagnostic radiologic methods using a vulcanized contrasting medium are useful in supplementing normal dissection in autopsy cases with suspected fistulas of the esophagus or trachea.     

Toxicological analysis of a fatal baclofen (Lioresal) ingestion

A fatality following ingestion of the drug baclofen (Lioresal) is described. Baclofen was identified in urine by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. After derivatization with trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid, baclofen was quantitated in serum and urine by high-performance liquid chromatography. The concentration of baclofen was 17 mg/L in serum and 760 mg/L in urine collected approximately 12 h after the overdose. To our knowledge, this is only the second reported fatality involving a baclofen overdose. The previous case did not include quantitation of baclofen in any biological fluid.