Monthly Archives: July, 2024
Michael Littlewood, ‘Foreign Trusts, the Panama Papers and the Shewan Report’
ABSTRACT The New Zealand tax system is so structured as to allow the country to be used as a tax haven. Specifically, it allows foreigners to use trusts established in New Zealand (referred to as ‘foreign trusts’) to avoid and evade the tax they would otherwise have to pay in their home country. It would […]
Sara Attinger and others, ‘Addressing the consequences of the corporatization of reproductive medicine’
ABSTRACT In Australia and the UK, commercialization and corporatization of assisted reproductive technologies have created a marketplace of clinics, products, and services. While this has arguably increased choice for patients, ‘choice’, shaped by commercial imperatives may not mean better-quality care. At present, regulation of clinics (including clinic-corporations) and clinicians focuses on the doctor-patient dyad and […]
Weller, Popa, Walsh-Buckley, Cook and Maylea, ‘The Importance of Legal Accountability in Negligence and Mental Health Care’
ABSTRACT Legal accountability in mental health care is increasingly gaining recognition in human rights discourse. Negligence is one accountability mechanism that can provide compensation, but has been criticised for failing to deliver justice. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 (Vic), along with immunity provisions for clinicians who act in good faith, have shone the […]
Laura Griffin, ‘Sue The Police: The Role Of Civil Liability In Addressing Indigenous Harms In Custody’
ABSTRACT The persistent crisis of Indigenous deaths and harms in custody can be understood as a crisis of accountability – the predictable result of ongoing systemic failures to hold police and prison officials responsible for the harms suffered by Indigenous people in their care. This article considers the role of civil liability as a mechanism […]
Jay Kesten, ‘Of Convergence and Contingency: Some Thoughts on Public Firm Fiduciary Duties’
ABSTRACT American public markets have changed profoundly over the past several decades. Public offerings have declined precipitously since the heyday of the 1980s and 1990s, and small company IPOs have virtually disappeared. The determinants of the secular decline in IPOs are hotly debated, but one emergent phenomenon of the current market dynamic is that many […]
O’Brien, Ramsay and Ali, ‘Innovation, Disruption and Consumer Harm in the Buy Now Pay Later Industry: An Empirical Study’
ABSTRACT ‘Buy now pay later’ (‘BNPL’) has been described as ‘an Australian fintech growth story’, an innovative and disruptive financial product that has fundamentally changed the global market for consumer credit. Providers assert that BNPL promotes financial inclusion, allowing consumers to avoid the fees and interest associated with other, more expensive financial products. Yet critics […]
Ekaterina Pannebakker, ‘Sustainable development clauses in international contracts through the lens of the Unidroit principles’
ABSTRACT Most transactions that leave an imprint on the environment and communities are organized by commercial contracts. However, little is known about the way in which parties reflect sustainable development in contractual clauses. How can parties to international contracts commit to respect sustainable development goals? What are the possible degrees of commitment? Which contractual mechanisms […]
G Edward White, ‘Reconsidering the Legacy of New York Times v Sullivan’
ABSTRACT This Article argues that the ‘actual malice’ standard for recovery in defamation cases should be abandoned outside cases in which the plaintiff is a ‘public official’, currently defined as an employee of the government whose office invites public scrutiny and comment. The actual malice standard prevents many categories of plaintiffs from recovering substantial amounts […]
SI Strong, ‘International Commercial Courts in the United States and Australia: Possible, Probable, Preferable?’
ABSTRACT As worldwide interest in international commercial courts grows, questions arise as to whether individual nations can or should seek to compete in the ‘litigation market’ by developing their own cross-border business courts. This essay compares the prospects of the United States and Australia in this regard, focusing on whether it is possible, probable, and […]
‘One size fits all in collective proceedings? CJEU in C‑450/22’
Dear readers, it is with genuine excitement (albeit with some delay) that I type out some thoughts in reaction to a very rich new decision by the CJEU, namely Caixabank and others of 4 July 2024 (C‑450/22). This case is, shockingly but not incredibly, yet another instalment in the floor clauses saga that we have […]