Featured Articles
The Changing Face of UK Taxation
Steve Edge
A Labour government has now been in power in the UK for 10 years. How have things changed in a fast moving international environment and against the background that a previous Labour chancellor pursuing socialist policies in the 1960s had promised “to squeeze the rich until the pips squeak”? What has New Labour delivered on the tax front?
Corporate Governance: A New Life or the Kiss of Death for International Tax Lawyers?
Philip van Hilten
In recent years financial scandals caused many to rethink ways in which management of responsible companies should behave. Corporate governance is today’s motto. Companies should be totally transparent and management should certify that nothing remotely debatable is hidden. None could speak out against this almost religious approach demanding accounts to reflect the truth and nothing but the truth.
All Change
Jason Glover
Tom Bell
As most readers of this publication know, 2007 was a year marked by sharp contrasts and a dramatic mid-year change in financial market conditions. The first half represented a culmination of the boom times experienced by the private equity industry in recent years, a period that Henry Kravis of KKR characterised as the ‘golden era’ of private equity.
Federal litigation - Where did it go off track?
Gregory P Joseph
Twenty-five years ago, it cost parties roughly the same to litigate in state and federal court. Plaintiffs chose federal court sometimes for expansive discovery or to get a good judge, even though state court was an available alternative and additur impermissible in federal court. Today, plaintiffs with non-federal causes of action flee federal courts, and those with federal claims scour the books for state law analogues. What happened?
Why do businesses use franchising to go international and how do they structure their approach to the international market?
Mark Abell
Franchising has a long history but is still in its infancy as regards its international regulation and the number of legal specialists involved in it internationally.
What makes a good franchise lawyer?
Philip F Zeidman
The title of this introduction to this year's listing of the best franchise lawyers in the world may be a bit jarring to the ears. In most cases, and for most purposes, those attributes which make for a good lawyer, and especially a good commercial lawyer, will also dictate what makes a good franchise lawyer.
Recent Developments In Information Technology Law
Katharina Scheja
Lars Lensdorf
Thomas Heymann
German IT law has been influenced by three legal projects and a couple of interesting court decisions, all of which will affect the IT industry.
Is It Time for Privacy 2.0?
Christopher Millard
‘Modern’ data protection laws first appeared in 1970 (in Germany) as a response to the use of computers to process information about people. At that time, however, there were relatively few computers and most were in the public or academic sectors, and at a few large corporations. Moreover, these machines tended to be housed in secure locations without direct connections to the outside world. For regulators, the task of tracking and supervising the processing of personal data might have been a realistic objective initially, although not for long.
The Nature of Environmental Risk in Australia
John Taberner
In Australia, land use planning legislation and pollution control legislation impose a wide range of criminal and civil liability.
Regulating Carbon: New Challenges for Environmental Lawyers
David J Hayes
Globalisation of the legal profession has accelerated in recent years, particularly with the growth of cross-border transactions and increased access to international capital markets. Until relatively recently, environmental law has resisted the trend toward legal globalisation, given its traditional focus on the localised impacts of projects and businesses. Global warming, however, is changing all of that. Environmental lawyers are finding themselves at the forefront of a newly-international environmental practice as companies around the world address a kaleidoscope of new regulatory requirements, investment opportunities, and disclosure obligations arising out of international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol and fast-developing domestic requirements aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other ‘greenhouse’ gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.