外资并购反垄断规制的国际协调

伴随经济全球化程度的不断加深,各国对资本要素流动的逐步开放,以外资并购为主要形式的第五次并购浪潮自1993年起一直方兴未艾。外资并购多是巨型跨国公司在两个或两个以上的国家进行的并购,其产生的影响不仅仅局限于一国之内,还会造成国际性市场垄断结构的形成。因此,一项跨国并购往往会成为多个国家反垄断法的规制对象,这就会导致各国在规制外资并购时发生冲突与对抗。如何解决此问题,是摆在各国面前的一道法律难题。本文试着从国际协调的角度对此问题予以探讨。     

我国外资准入制度的现状、问题及其重构

我国对外资不区分行业一律进行普遍的多元行政审批,不仅导致审批效率的低下与行政资源的浪费,而且不利于实现合理利用、引导外资为我国经济结构调整及产业升级服务的政策目标。外资准入制度的改革是一项需多方协调配合的系统工程。实体性行业政策的科学制定是外资准入制度重构的前提与基础。审批程序的改革则需区分具体行业,从鼓励类、允许类等对我国国民经济冲击较小的行业开始,分层次、分步骤地逐步简化外资准入的审批层级,合理限定审批内容。另外,在优化审批程序的同时,应构筑多重风险防范体系,通过国家安全审查、反垄断审查等立体化制度安排,防范外资对我国尚处于发展中的国民经济体系造成过度冲击。     

外贸豁免制度的贸易保护功能研究

随着各国贸易保护战略的推进,反垄断法作为政府进行经济调控的工具,与贸易保护政策间的互动关系日益紧密。对外贸易反垄断豁免正是各国为满足贸易需求而普遍适用的竞争政策,它对于促进一国对外贸易发展、提高国际竞争力、保护国内产业利益具有特别的功能和效果,但其适用也受到限制。根据发达国家的有关立法和实践,我国《反垄断法》下的外贸豁免制度尚需完善,惟有如此方能确保其必要的贸易保护功能得以有效发挥。     

附条件不起诉制度探究

继我国明确提出宽严相济的刑事政策后,在我国以立法形式确立附条件不起诉制度在业界的呼声越来越高,我国有些地方也已经开始探索实践。借鉴国外的司法实践,在我国设立附条件不起诉制度是必要的,尽管我国设立该制度的构架还是简单的几方面。     

Democracy,human rights,and U.S.‐Africa trade

The nexus of economic and political relations is a central issue in international relations, and the influence of political liberalization upon trade ties lies at the center of much liberal theory. However, many facets of the empirical linkage between political liberalization—including democratization and the respect for human rights—and trade remain uninvestigated. Examining the case of U.S.‐Africa trade, this study considers two unexplored facets of these political determinants of trade: (1) the role of human rights conditions, and (2) the robustness of the relationship between democracy, human rights, and trade across a subset of vertical dyads. Using a gravity model to assess trade patterns, we find that neither democracy nor human rights conditions has a significant impact upon U.S. trade to Africa.     

Editor's Note

Most scholars explain political interactions within OPEC countries with reference to clusters of economic and political variables. In this paper, we use dyadic interaction data to describe the frequency and affective orientation between OPEC pairs. Explanations for the prominent trends within the four time periods are offered. The analysis suggests that no combination of political or economic factors explain consistently the coalitions and cleavages within OPEC between 1959 and 1974.     

Playing the Diversity Card: Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Policy under the Salmans

ABSTRACT

Since the 2003 regime change in Iraq and the 2011 Arab uprisings, the political map of the Middle East has been in flux. Regional actors have taken advantage of emerging windows of opportunity, which have affected the outcome of this process. Saudi Arabia’s role as an aspiring regional hegemon in the region is salient: the country’s assertive course in shaping its neighbourhood coincides with a more independent foreign policy that goes beyond the traditional US alliance and seeks to diversify its international partners. This diversification of Saudi foreign policy since the ascension to the throne of King Salman in 2015 is explained by using the IR concept of hedging.     

Coercive Assets? Foreign Direct Investment and the Use of Economic Sanctions

How does foreign direct investment (FDI) affect the use of economic coercion? This article argues that while FDI matters, the effect depends on the entry mode of the FDI. The economic interdependence created by FDI does not have a monotonic effect on economic statecraft because the relative costs incurred by economic disruption differ depending on the forms of foreign investment. In particular, the FDI that creates wholly-owned subsidiaries (for example, cross-border mergers and aquisitions) imposes greater costs to the sender's firms than cross-border joint ventures with local partners, while FDI through joint ventures incurs greater costs for the host than the home country and its firms. By utilizing US sanction episodes from the Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) dataset, the empirical analysis supports the argument. The results show that economic sanctions are less likely to occur as the share of FDI through cross-border mergers and acquisitions increases.     

Conditional on Conditionality: IMF Program Design and Foreign Direct Investment

The article explores how International Monetary Fund (IMF) program design influences foreign direct investment inflows. The author argues that stricter IMF conditionality signals a program-participating government's commitment to economic reforms, as it incurs larger ex ante political cost and risks greater ex post political cost. Thus, the catalytic effect of an IMF program is conditional on conditionality: programs with stricter conditions catalyze more foreign direct investment than those with less stringent conditions. Empirical analysis of the IMF conditionality dataset supports the argument and shows that after accounting for IMF program participation, the more structural conditions included in an IMF program, the more foreign direct investment flows into the country.     

RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF JUDGMENTS BETWEEN CHINA,JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA IN THE NEW ERA: SOUTH KOREAN LAW PERSPECTIVE

This article discusses the rules for recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the Republic of Korea (hereinafter referred to as “South Korea” or “Korea”). Articles 217 and 217-2 of the Civil Procedure Act of Korea and Articles 26 and 27 of the Civil Enforcement Act of Korea provide for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments respectively. Korea has not entered into any bilateral or multilateral treaties regarding the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and is not a party to the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. The article also considers the current undesirable status of recognition and enforcement of judgments in the region consisting of China, Japan and South Korea (hereinafter referred to as “Region”) and suggests a course of action to be taken to improve the situation. The author believes that the experts of the Region should embark upon a project to improve the current situation and that the first step should be to exchange and gather information on the current legal regime of the countries in the Region on the recognition and enforcement of judgments. The author looks forward to future cooperation among the experts in the Region on this topic and is confident that the reciprocity requirement, which currently is a major obstacle to the mutual recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the Region, will be overcome in the near future.