Violating Its Investment Treaty Obligations

Every business organization has a social responsibility in ensuring that the environment it operates in is protected. Many companies have identified that they have a major role to play in protecting the natural habitat and ensuring that business is not only about making profits. Some organizations are setting aside funds that are developed in the protection of the environment while other organizations are setting a tree-planting day as part of their annual calendar. Companies have legal and ethical responsibilities that guide the organization in making sure that the environment is taken care of. The natural resource depletion and the environmental pollution have led to conservation groups setting rules that govern the company in utilizing natural resources.

This tribunal is granted the power to decide in “any decisions an administrator affecting eligibility for or the amount of basic financial assistance, other than a decision

In the summer of 2001, questions began to arise about the integrity of Houston energy company Enron’s financial statements. In December, they filed for bankruptcy as their fraud came to light and the United States government froze all of their assets and began prosecuting their executives and their external auditing firm Arthur Anderson (Franzel 2014). Enron was not the only company using accounting loopholes to mislead stockholders though; Global Crossing, Tyco, Aldephia, WorldCom, and Waste Management all underwent investigation for similar

regulations. The decision of whether or not to regulate these areas has been preempted, but the

To support his position, Garrett points to the decisions of two federal courts of appeals that have held “in the context of non-prosecution agreements [that] the government is prevented by due process considerations from unilaterally determining that a defendant is in breach and nullifying the agreement.”37 This sort of judicial review, however, does not offer sufficient safeguards for companies, nor is it constitutionally required when it matters

One of the grounds of setting aside an arbitral award is if it opposes public policy under Section 34(2)(b)(ii). With the advent of the Saw Pipes case , the concept of public policy expanded in nature and started including patently illegal errors of the arbitral tribunal as a ground for setting aside the award.

Lastly, the third stakeholder is the U.S. government, especially the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The U.S. government has tremendous legal and political power. They have the ability to sue, penalize, and create special regulations against Enron. Because the government’s interest is to protect the public’s interests, it is likely that the government will sanction Enron for its scandal (Lawrence & Weber, 2014). Nevertheless, we still see a possibility for Enron to pull the

unfortunately retrogressive decision in English administrative law, insofar as it suggested that there are degrees of unreasonableness and that only a very extreme degree can bring an administrative decision within the legitimate scope of judicial invalidation. The depth of judicial review and the deference due to administrative discretion vary with the subject matter. It may well be, however, that the law can never be satisfied in any administrative field merely by a finding that the decision under review is not capricious or absurd.’ ( (Daly) v Secretary of State for the Home

In 2002, the United States of America passed a policy that granted United States farmers access to subsidies, in order to protect the domestic market in agriculture. In retaliation to this policy being passed the Brazilian government sued the United States in the court under the World Trade Organization for violating free trade agreements. The Brazilian government claimed that the United States was liberalizing its trade, making it unfair in a free market. The World Trade Organization enacted punitive measures against the United States by imposing tariffs and lifting patent protection on various United States goods. The United States had to act in some way because these measures would hurt markets in other areas including agriculture. The U.S. then agreed to subsidize farmers in Brazil by giving them one hundred and fifty million dollars. Many people argue that the other countries do not face the same regulations as in America, and there for are more protected, but other countries say that subsidizing farmers takes away a free market. There are pros and cons to subsidizing farmers in any country. The good side is that it provides job security for farmers and helps them to work around regulations and still acquire profits. The bad side is that these subsidies result in inefficient farmers that just get their compensation at the end of the year without producing a standard amount of product. It is also argued that subsidizing farmers restricts economic growth. I believe that

After winning season twelve of Project Runway there has been countless emails of getting replicas of what was made on the show. There have also been request for original dresses to be made for numerous celebrities’. With that being said I have decided to start my own clothing company “Queen Chic”. We will not only sell and manufacture in the states, but this will be a global venture with manufacturers in china.

Unfortunately, scandals like Enron are not isolated incidents and the last decade has offered Americans a disheartening perspective with comparable scandals like that of WorldCom and Tyco, Sunbeam, Global Crossing and many more. Companies have a concrete responsibility not just to their investors but to society as a whole to have practices which deter corporate greed and looting and which actively and effectively work to prevent such things from happening. This

For these reasons, corporate financial accounts do not provide accurate or sufficient information to corporate managers, investors, or regulators. This leads us to recommend that the SEC allow each stock exchange to set the accounting standards for all firms listed on that exchange and to promote the development of industry-specific non-financial accounts to complement the financial accounts (After Enron 53). The most important lesson of the Enron collapse is that every link in the audit chain including: the audit committee and the board, the independent public auditor, the bankers and lawyers that aided and abetted the misrepresentation of Enron’s financial condition, the credit-rating agencies, and the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to deter, detect, and correct the conditions that led to that collapse. Although not a part of the formal audit chain, most of the market specialists in Enron stock and the business press were also late in recognizing Enron’s financial weakness (Corporate Aftershocks 12).

Most of the world has heard of Enron, the American, mega-energy company that “cooked their books” ( ) and cost their investors billions of dollars in lost earnings and retirement funds. While much of the controversy surrounding the Enron scandal focused on the losses of investors, unethical practices of executives and questionable accounting tactics, there were many others within close proximity to the turmoil. It begs the question- who was really at fault and what has been done to prevent it from happening again?

During industrialisation, Western European Countries and United States, which has huge capital surplus, started investing massively in less developed countries in the form of Foreign Direct Investment. There was obviously an imbalance of power between the investing countries and the host countries at that time. The investing countries expected that their investment and property be protected and in case they suffered any injury or incurred any loss, the host country has to compensate else the former had all the power to make their life uncomfortable. The investors could even seek help from their government to obtain the desired remedy for damage caused to their investment. This

Different countries have different concerns that need to be preserved through exception provisions. In drafting the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), France and Germany tended to introduce cultural exception to protect the domestic cultural industry, while the US proposed including national security, governmental subsidy, governmental procurement, and support for ethic minority into exceptions. The discrepancy on the content of exceptions constituted determinant accelerating the failure of MAI negotiation.