De recente ontwikkelingen in de Nederlandse jurisprudentie en de herziening van de Corporate Governance Code zouden kunnen dienen als een belangrijke katalysator voor meer ‘duurzame’ overnamebesluiten door het benadrukken van het belang van langetermijnwaardecreatie. De auteurs interviewden belangrijke actoren in overnameconflicten om hun visie te geven op de kansen en bedreigingen van langetermijnwaardecreatie. De reflecties zijn in lijn met de ontwikkelingen en aldus doorgedrongen in het maatschappelijke speelveld. Concrete invulling geven aan langetermijnwaardecreatie is complex vanwege de uiteenlopende visies op het vennootschappelijke belang: de shareholders, stakeholders en de entiteit. Dit schept echter ook de ruimte om autonoom invulling te geven aan langetermijnwaardecreatie.

De accountancysector zit midden in een verandertraject dat moet leiden tot een duurzame gedrags- en cultuurverandering. Uit verschillende onderzoeken zou echter blijken dat de sector onvoldoende voortgang boekt. Dit baart de Minister van Financiën zorgen en daarom heeft hij de Commissie Toekomst Accountancysector (CTA) ingesteld. In deze bijdrage staat de auteur stil bij een drietal onderwerpen, die relevant zijn voor het onderzoek van de CTA naar de toekomst van de accountancysector. Dit betreft de taak en het plan van aanpak van de CTA, het rapport ‘Kwetsbaarheden in de structuur van de accountancysector’ van de AFM en de reacties bij de consultatie. Tot slot worden de voorlopige bevindingen van de CTA besproken.

The rules of the Spanish and the Catalan civil codes dealing with compulsory shares and spousal protection in succession law represent very differentiated models of family protection within the large variety of legal regulations coexisting in Spain. The Spanish code, with little changes since 1889, lays down a system of large compulsory shares for the descendants (2/3 of the estate) or, failing them, the ascendants (1/2 of the estate), and confers a right of usufruct of varying extension to the surviving spouse. The Catalan code, renewed in 2008, establishes a much shorter compulsory share (1/4 of the estate) for the descendants or, failing them, the parents of the deceased person, and protects not only the spouse but also the unmarried partner by granting the survivor a maintenance-like right of up to a quarter of the estate.

The Austrian mediation landscape is quite inhomogeneous, with no universally applicable framework in place to safeguard best practice standards in mediation. Any commitment of mediators to codes of conduct or ethical guidelines occurs on an entirely voluntary basis. Control mechanisms exist in the form of complaint bodies instituted at the level of Austrian mediation associations.

For social scientists undertaking critical research on elites in organisational contexts securing access is a challenging exercise that may rely on the use of several access strategies over extended periods. This process is further complicated by the existence of research ethics frameworks that establish boundaries to access strategies, posing dilemmas on how to best balance access needs with a commitment to ethical practices. This article focuses on such dilemmas – or the ‘ethics of access’ – through a reflection on PhD fieldwork during 2016-2017 in Luxembourg spent researching the European Investment Bank. The paper will conclude by calling for an overhaul of existing frameworks in order to foster more research on elites.

Multi-national corporations are increasingly facing attention and disapproval by different actors, including authorities, public and (non-) commercial organizations. Digital globalization and especially social media as a low-cost, highly interactive and multidirectional platform shape a unique context for this rising attention. In the literature, much attention has been devoted to top-down approaches and strategies that corporations use to avoid stigmatization and sanctioning of their behaviour. Reactions to corporate harm are, however, seldom researched from a labelling perspective. As a result, corporations are not considered as objects towards whom labelling is targeted but rather as actors who hamper such processes and who, as moral entrepreneurs, influence which behaviour is labelled deviant. Based on theoretical analysis of literature and case studies, this article will discuss how the process of labelling has changed in light of the digitalized, late-modern society and consequently, how the process should be revisited to be applicable for corporate deviance. Given a diversification of moral entrepreneurs and increasingly dependency of labelling and meaning-making on the online sphere, two new forms of labelling are introduced that specifically target institutions; that is bottom-up and horizontal labelling.

Bierman en Kerckhaert onderzoeken de Conservatrix-casus en gaan in op de vraag of er, na de introductie van de Wet herstel en afwikkeling verzekeraars, lessen uit deze zaak zijn te trekken. Uiterst actueel, nu een aantal verzekeraars de afgelopen jaren (bijna) in de problemen is gekomen, meest recent Yarden in oktober 2019.

This contribution reflects on the criminological meaning of the still ongoing trend of digitalisation. What does this mean for crime as a phenomenon and for the explanation of criminal behaviour? Not only did we see the emergence of new types of offending, also the context of crime has changed. In principle, the underlying explanatory processes can remain the same, but their application in the online world is complex and deserves further attention. Online social interactions are not only important for online crime, but also for traditional offenses. However, systematic research on how this actually takes place is scarce.

The European Commission recently conducted a public consultation on the measures that may be taken to ensure the full application of the principle of equal pay between women and men. Its evaluation report is expected before the end of this year. The new Swiss legislation on monitoring and disclosure of the gender pay gap may be inspiration for future EU initiatives in this area.

In a series of rulings the Austrian Supreme Court has made it clear that temporary agency workers are transferred to the transferee only if they are assigned to the transferor on a permanent basis. According to the Court, the facts of the cases at hand are not comparable to those of the ECJ ruling in Albron Catering BV (C-242/09). Hence the temporary agency workers remain with their original employer. However, some aspects of the Court’s reasoning seem unclear if not contradictory with regard to other recent judgments.

The Danish Western High Court has ruled that the dismissal of an employee shortly after returning from childbirth-related leave did not constitute discrimination within the meaning of the Danish Act on Equal Treatment of Men and Women.

The promises of Big Data, predictive policing and artificial intelligence hold a key position in the public debate for quite some time now. Optimists tell that it is possible to predict where criminal events will occur before they take place. This would implicate a major shift towards a crime and insecurity preventive society, feeding on our cultural longing for a secure future. Therefore we give algorithms and deep learning access to more and more aspects of our lives. But how realistic and desirable is the application of Big Data techniques in the area of security?
In this article we put focus on the research question ‘In which way can Big Data and predictive policing support good governance of security?’, that has led our study. By exploring the central concepts, the processes behind them and their results in the domain of public security, we conclude that there are only rather disappointing results from the application of these techniques: crime and insecurity have not dropped when the police and other organizations turned to Big Data techniques. Instead, many negative side effects occurred. We search for explanations in six central academic critiques on the application of these techniques in the area of security.
We have found several ways to guaranty principles of good governance in the application of Big Data techniques, but these require a firm paradigm shift on Big Data in general. The heuristics of security professionals should not be overshadowed by technological promises: the professional should always be in the loop, must understand the way predictions come into existence and must be able to correct flaws and bugs of (semi-)automated decisions. We conclude that safeguarding public security must remain human work in which Big Data techniques can assist.

Het functioneren van de interne markt kent een aantal problemen die twee recente verordeningen – nrs. 2019/515 en 2019/1020 – proberen te verhelpen. De eerste verordening schoeit het markttoezicht op de conformiteit van producten die onderwerp zijn van op unieniveau geharmoniseerde normen op een nieuwe leest. De andere verordening introduceert een aantal procedures om de wederzijdse erkenning van niet-geharmoniseerde voorschriften van de lidstaten in de praktijk beter te laten werken. De onderhavige bijdrage geeft een overzicht van de belangrijkste bepalingen van de verordeningen.
Verordening (EU) 2019/515 van het Europees Parlement en de Raad van 19 maart 2019 betreffende de wederzijdse erkenning van goederen die in een andere lidstaat rechtmatig in de handel zijn gebracht en tot intrekking van Verordening (EG) nr. 764/2008, PbEU 2019, L 91/1 en Verordening (EU) 2019/1020 van het Europees Parlement en de Raad van 20 juni 2019 betreffende markttoezicht en conformiteit van producten en tot wijziging van Richtlijn 2004/42/EG en de Verordeningen (EG) nr. 765/2008 en (EU) nr. 305/2011, PbEU 2019, L 169/1

We analyze two citizen collectives of ‘professional city makers’ who have shaped participation in circular area development in anticipation of the Dutch Environment and Planning Act. The activities of professional city-makers form an interesting new phenomenon that requires attention as well as the implications: it is precisely through the professionalism of the city-makers’ efforts that there is a regular tension in the participation process between their role as citizen and professional in their contact with the government. We therefore discuss how the participation of professional city-makers in area development exposes different paradoxes that must be taken into account in the further implementation of the Environment and Planning Act. In short, we argue that participation in the Act is presented in a traditional way and does not fit the new role of citizens in area development in the 21st century.

As a reaction to the perceived enforcement deficit of criminal law in the field of drug control, several countries implemented alternative regulatory strategies. One such strategy is the reregulating drugs, especially cannabis. Another strategy is the use of civil or administrative law to address drug-related crime. Especially the use of eviction to combat drug activities has become increasingly popular.
My PhD research focuses on these two developments within the field of drug control. More specifically, on the underlying rationales for the policies on recreational cannabis, the possibilities that international law provide to regulate recreational cannabis, the legal protection against drug-related evictions, and the explanation for the use of eviction to fight drug-related activities.

This contribution deals with the latest proposals regarding levying VAT in the European Union (EU) Customs Union. The present system, which has been in place since 1993 and was supposed to be transitional, splits every cross-border transaction into an exempted cross-border supply and a taxable cross-border acquisition. It is like a customs system, but lacks equivalent controls and is therefore the root of cross-border fraud. After many years of unsuccessful attempts, the Commission abandoned the objective of implementing definitive VAT arrangements based on the principle of taxing all cross-border supplies of goods in the Member State of their origin, under the same conditions that apply to domestic trade including VAT rates. The European Parliament and the Council agreed that the definitive system should be based on the principle of taxation in the Member State of the destination of the goods. After a brief discussion of the VAT Action Plan of 2016 (Section 1), the e-commerce package in the form of Directive (EU) 2017/2455 is dealt with (Section 2), followed by the proposal to harmonise and simplify certain rules in the VAT system and introduce the definitive system, only partially adopted (Section 3). Section 4 deals with the proposal to introduce detailed measures of the definitive VAT system. The proposed harmonisation and simplification of certain rules were meant to become applicable on 1 January 2019, but will become only partially applicable on 2020. It is proposed to make the detailed measures of the definitive VAT system applicable in 2022. It remains to be seen whether the Member States are willing to accept the definitive VAT system at all; hence the subtitle ‘the ordeal of indirect tax harmonisation’.

Traditionally, it has been taught, or prohibited, for mediators to charge ‘success fees’ or ‘contingency fees’ as remuneration for the work they do. This article argues that such overall prohibition lacks nuances. Mediation rules and rules of ethics for mediators should not prevent the parties and the mediators from agreeing on some sort of higher remuneration in case of successful outcome of the mediation. There are limits. In particular, making the mediator’s remuneration a percentage of the settlement amount should remain prohibited.
However, if the mediator’s interests are aligned with those of the parties, which shall frequently be the case, there should be no blank prohibition for the mediator to charge higher fees in case of successful outcome of the mediation process.
There is a need for the mediator to be fully transparent about the system he proposes, which includes explaining to the parties and securing their understanding of the pros and cons of the remuneration system he suggests.

A narrative review was conducted to develop more coherent awareness and knowledge regarding emotional experiences of qualitative researchers studying sensitive topics or vulnerable groups, as discussions about this topic are currently fragmented and scattered. Qualitative researchers experience many painful as well as enjoyable emotions, which can influence their personal, social and professional lives. These emotions are recurrently reported in relation to the unpredictability of qualitative research and the different roles of qualitative researchers. More structural and individual attention for emotional experiences of qualitative researchers is necessary, for instance, in academic (doctoral) training and general handbooks on qualitative research.

This contribution examines the various international instruments, in both hard and soft law, that have been established by international organisations such as the WTO and WCO and scrutinises how they have been implemented into EU legislation governing the EU Customs Union, thus demonstrating the substantial influence of international instruments on the Customs Union. As the relevant international instruments affect not only the traditional elements of European customs law, but also the EU’s entire export control regime and the framework of the internal market, this contribution demonstrates, moreover, how the Customs Union functions in a globalised world.

Slovenia realized very early that mediation as a form of a more flexible, consumer-friendly and interest-driven procedure can also be utilised as an effective means of court backlog reduction. The court-annexed mediation model was launched in 2001 without any regulatory framework as a pilot project at the District Court of Ljubljana. As a consequence of the successful pilot project court-annexed mediation was introduced into every first-instance and second-instance court. The main incentives for the mediation model were that it was free of charge, i.e. the costs of mediation were included into the court budgets, that it was performed by judges trained as mediators and that attorneys were included into the process at a very early stage. Mediation has become widely accepted, as the voluntary uptake by the parties is quite high and referral to mediation by judges against the will of litigants is rather an exception.