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Spain: International Influence on The Domestic Insurance Market

Jerònia Pons Pons

in World Insurance: The Evolution of a Global Risk Network

This chapter traces the history of the Spanish insurance industry. One distinguishing characteristic of the Spanish insurance market has been the continuing influence of foreign companies. Whilst ... More

This chapter traces the history of the Spanish insurance industry. One distinguishing characteristic of the Spanish insurance market has been the continuing influence of foreign companies. Whilst elsewhere the level of foreign investment generally decreased heavily as the domestic insurance industry developed, in Spain by 1940 the quota was still relatively high at over 30 per cent in life and accident insurance. It was only during the Franco era (1940–75) and the first years of the transition to democracy (1976–85) that these figures dropped to below 15 per cent. The important international insurance groups again came to the fore with the liberalization of the financial markets in the 1990s, after Spain had joined the EEC in 1986.Less

The Impact of the Helms-Burton Law on Foreign Investment in Cuba

Paolo Spadoni

in Failed Sanctions: Why the U.S. Embargo against Cuba Could Never Work

This chapter describes several different ways in which the Helms-Burton law affects prospective and existing foreign investors in Cuba. It also evaluates the impact of the legislation on Cuba's ... More

This chapter describes several different ways in which the Helms-Burton law affects prospective and existing foreign investors in Cuba. It also evaluates the impact of the legislation on Cuba's economic performance and the flow of foreign investment as well as its effectiveness in forcing overseas firms to pull out of the island. The analysis gives special attention to the sizable number of existing foreign investors on the island that have been targeted by the U.S. law. After all, the U.S. government mostly targeted foreign companies with major business activities in Cuba in an attempt to produce a serious negative impact on the Cuban economy.Less

What Can Go Wrong When Western Companies Invest in Poor Nations

Samuel Cohn

in All Societies Die: How to Keep Hope Alive

This chapter examines the case of multinational corporations to demonstrate how the West is still causing economic damage to poor nations. Multinational corporations are companies that are based in ... More

This chapter examines the case of multinational corporations to demonstrate how the West is still causing economic damage to poor nations. Multinational corporations are companies that are based in one country but have subsidiaries in many other nations of the world. Multinational corporations investing in poor nations is supposed to be good; the multinational corporations offer to bring in capital and technology, which are just what struggling economies need. The problem is capital repatriation, which is when a foreign-owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation transfers its profits out of the local country and into the home country where the multinational's headquarters are located. The chapter then considers a famous study by Barnet and Muller of the Latin American subsidiaries of American manufacturing companies in the 1960s. They found that the American companies actually started very few new manufacturing operations in Latin America. They instead shopped for preexisting successful companies, taking operations that already had a substantial income flow and diverted that flow to the United States. Meanwhile, econometric analyses of both the short-term and the long-term effects of foreign direct investment find that the turnaround point is about five years after the investment. From year zero to year five, foreign direct investment raises rates of economic growth. From year five to year twenty, foreign direct investment lowers rates of economic growth.Less

Crisis in the New Regime

JOHN MASON HART

in Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War

This chapter examines the political crisis in Mexico under the administration of Adolfo de la Huerta. In 1920 a new era in relations between Mexico and the U.S. began. But as American and Mexican ... More

This chapter examines the political crisis in Mexico under the administration of Adolfo de la Huerta. In 1920 a new era in relations between Mexico and the U.S. began. But as American and Mexican officials sought a working relationship satisfactory to both sides, their respective publics continued to pressure them. Special committees representing American interests continued to negotiate with the Mexican government while Mexican workers sought the realization of their rights as written in the Constitution of 1917 and demanded that foreign companies accept national laws. During this period, nationalism was growing among the general Mexican populace and the elites, and they began pressing for the Mexicanization of all national assets.Less

Derivative Claims

Victor Joffe QC, David Drake, Giles Richardson, Daniel Lightman QC, and Timothy Collingwood

in Minority Shareholders: Law, Practice, and Procedure, Sixth Edition

The distinction between the personal rights of the shareholder and the rights of the company is fundamental to the concept of minority shareholder protection.

Business History in Argentina

Raúl García Heras

in Business History in Latin America: The Experience of Seven Countries

This chapter reviews the literature on the history of business in Argentina. The studies reviewed fall into four sections: foreign companies; state enterprises; local private firms; and interest ... More

This chapter reviews the literature on the history of business in Argentina. The studies reviewed fall into four sections: foreign companies; state enterprises; local private firms; and interest groups and professional associations. It shows that Argentina represented a promising Latin American market. Within the Argentine economy, the state significantly plays a controversial role as manager of business enterprises. This chapter also presents some indication of the enormous tasks still pending to develop the historiography of business in Argentina. Some suggestions for future research and a brief note on some easily accessible sources for researchers who may be interested are then provided.Less

Insurance

Danny M. Adkison and Lisa McNair Palmer

in The Oklahoma State Constitution

This chapter looks at Article XIX of the Oklahoma constitution, which concerns insurance. Section 1 reflects the state’s paternal desire to protect its citizens from insurance companies that might ... More

This chapter looks at Article XIX of the Oklahoma constitution, which concerns insurance. Section 1 reflects the state’s paternal desire to protect its citizens from insurance companies that might come into Oklahoma with the intent to defraud Oklahoma residents. The legislature has chosen to pass laws imposing taxes on foreign insurance companies, as allowed by this section of the constitution. Section 2 specifies the entrance fees and annual tax that foreign insurance companies must pay to the insurance commissioner. Meanwhile, Section 3 deals with nonprofit insurance organizations. To establish status as a fraternal beneficiary association under this section, the character of such business, and not its formal organization, determines its status. Section 4 is basically a bookkeeping provision that determines what is done with fees charged to insurance entities in the state.Less

Critics and Controversy: Opposition to Tolling and Long-Term Concessions

Robert W. Poole Jr.

in Rethinking America's Highways: A 21st-Century Vision for Better Infrastructure

Opponents include grass-roots populists, some groups on the left, and interest groups. The latter include some environmental groups, a few public employee unions, some toll agencies, and trucking ... More

Opponents include grass-roots populists, some groups on the left, and interest groups. The latter include some environmental groups, a few public employee unions, some toll agencies, and trucking organizations. This chapter addresses arguments made by these various groups.Less

Use of Investor–state against China’s Enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law: Belling the Panda?

Sungjin Kang

in China's International Investment Strategy: Bilateral, Regional, and Global Law and Policy

Since China introduced the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) in 2008, China achieved an impressive competition law enforcement field record. However, lawyers and scholars still argue that Chinese competition ... More

Since China introduced the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) in 2008, China achieved an impressive competition law enforcement field record. However, lawyers and scholars still argue that Chinese competition authorities applied AML disproportionately against foreign companies. Despite the possibility of judicial reviews, many foreign companies still have reservation on the independent of judiciary of China, and they are still reluctant to appeal the decisions before the Chinese courts. In addition, there are some incidents where Chinese competition authorities used the AML to promote its own industrial policy. In this regard, foreign companies are not 100 per cent sure to trust the decisions of the Chinese competition authorities that they apply the AML fairly to safeguard the fair competition between Chinese companies and foreign companies. In this regard, foreign investors are trying to find a system to make sure that they are subject to ‘fair and equitable’ treatment or at least to ‘national treatment’ under the trade agreements between China and its major trading partners. The author is of the view that it is time for the foreign investors in China to consider the ISDS as an option to challenge procedural aspects of the Chinese competition law enforcements. By bringing an AML cases before the ISDS, foreign investors may induce Chinese competition authorities to comply with the due process and fair application of the competition laws, thus safeguarding transparency and predictability of the competition law enforcement of China.Less

Ownership and Wages: Estimating Public-Private and Foreign-Domestic Differentials with LEED from Hungary, 1986 to 2003

John S. Earle and Álmos Telegdy

in The Analysis of Firms and Employees: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches

Wages in the transition economies of Eastern Europe have changed dramatically in the fifteen years since the collapse of central planning. Average wages tended to decline in the first few years of ... More

Wages in the transition economies of Eastern Europe have changed dramatically in the fifteen years since the collapse of central planning. Average wages tended to decline in the first few years of transition and to rise more recently. At the same time, the economies of the region have experienced massive organizational changes, most prominently large-scale privatization and opening to the global economy, including foreign direct investment. These rapid changes provide a useful context for investigating the relationship between firm ownership and the level of wages. This chapter explores the relationship between wage level and ownership using linked employer-employee data for Hungary. The data cover nearly every tax-paying entity of at least twenty employees in Hungary from 1986 to 2003, and include many more switches of ownership type than in previous research: nearly 1,000 involving foreign companies and nearly 3,500 involving state-owned corporations over the period.Less

Ambiguities at work: refugees and the French war economy, 1939–40

Scott Soo

in The routes to exile: France and the Spanish Civil War refugees, 1939-2009

Questions the view that all refugees endured an increasingly repressive context at the end of the Third Republic by showing how the war economy created certain, though limited, opportunities for the ... More

Questions the view that all refugees endured an increasingly repressive context at the end of the Third Republic by showing how the war economy created certain, though limited, opportunities for the Spanish republicans. The introduction of the refugees into workplaces through the Foreign Labour Companies and other work schemes secured an end to mass internment and was followed by improved working conditions. Nonetheless, the French authorities had to contend with problems of surveillance and issues of legitimacy as some Spanish republicans protested or escaped from the Labour Companies in order to retain some agency over their lives in France.Less

England and Wales: National Correspondents: Prof Michael Anderson Schillig and Nick Segal, in Cooperation with Katharina Crinson

in Rescue of Business in Europe: A European Law Institute Instrument

Administration (at least in isolation) turned out to be largely unsuitable for balance sheet restructurings. Instead the much older scheme of arrangement procedure emerged, in recent years, as the ... More

Administration (at least in isolation) turned out to be largely unsuitable for balance sheet restructurings. Instead the much older scheme of arrangement procedure emerged, in recent years, as the mechanism of choice for effectuating a balance sheet restructuring. Having its origin in the Companies Act 1862, the scheme of arrangement is still regulated as part of company law (Companies Act 2006, Pt.26), rather than insolvency law, thus avoiding to a certain extent the stigma of insolvency. It can be used for a multitude of purposes, including takeovers, mergers and debt restructurings. As a restructuring mechanism, schemes are extremely flexible. Less

Reverse Payment Settlements

Thomas K. Cheng

in The Patent-Competition Interface in Developing Countries

This chapter assesses the issues surrounding the regulation of reverse payment settlements, which have been shown to inflate drug prices, and proposes how developing countries should regulate them. ... More

This chapter assesses the issues surrounding the regulation of reverse payment settlements, which have been shown to inflate drug prices, and proposes how developing countries should regulate them. Like excessive pricing enforcement in pharmaceuticals, enforcement against reverse payment settlements will not be easy for developing country competition authorities. The difficulty does not chiefly stem from legal analysis. If developing countries adopt the rule of presumptive illegality, the condemnation of reverse payment settlements should be relatively straightforward. Most reverse payment settlements entail payments that far exceed the patentee–s anticipated litigation costs. While the proliferation of more complex settlement agreements featuring licensing, co-promotion, and other agreements to disguise the value transfer may render the analysis less straightforward, this can be alleviated by shifting the burden to demonstrate the legitimacy of the payment to the defendants. The difficulty arises in exercising jurisdiction over foreign pharmaceutical companies and in crafting and imposing effective remedies.Less