Bibliographie sélective OHADA

Abstract not available.

Various initiatives by regulators in different jurisdictions over the past two decades have completely reshaped the airline industry in ways that were unimaginable in 1992. From an industry dominated by Pan Am and Trans World Airlines (TWA), and newly privatized airlines such as British Airways, today's industry is dominated by government-owned intercontinental airlines based in the Middle East and carrying passengers the majority of whom are ultimately destined for States other than the States where the airlines are based. Insufficient thought has been given to whether this evolution is desirable, whether it involves profound competitive distortions or whether it is in the public interest that the majority of Australians visiting Europe are carried by an airline based in neither jurisdiction or that a similar claim might be made with respect to traffic between South Asia and the Americas. This thesis examines the events that have reshaped the international aviation industry over the two decades between 1992 and 2012. It will critically analyze the major developments and the regulatory responses and highlight some of the incompatible and disjointed regulations that are in effect at either end of international routes. It ultimately proposes that Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), New Zealand and the United States (US) form a small international organization, to be known as the Open Skies International Aviation Block (OSIAB). OSIAB would be based on expanding the membership of the US-EU Joint Committee foreseen in the 2007 US-EU Open Skies Agreement and expanding its scope to cover every aspect of the regulation of international commercial aviation. This thesis argues such a forum is necessary to ensure that regulations in different countries are aligned so that competitive distortions potentially caused by regulatory disharmony are minimized, thus allowing the international airline industry to compete on the level international playing field that so many international agreements have promised to create.

This dissertation purports to connect the preliminary reference procedure with direct taxation. The aim of my dissertation is to lay down how this essential mechanism for the development of EU law – the preliminary reference procedure – deals with the cases in the field of direct taxation. By analyzing the preliminary rulings in the particular field, this thesis will shed light on the meaning of judicial cooperation between the Court of Justice of the European Union (“Court”) and the national courts. The almost absence of harmonized direct taxation reached at the European level enables the Court throughout the preliminary reference procedure to become the only available actor to safeguard the rights conferred to the individuals by EU law. In the area of direct taxation, it encompasses the rights of the individuals to exercise the fundamental Treaty freedoms of circulation. Therefore, the entrenchment of the rights of the individuals requires national courts requesting questions for preliminary rulings whereby national tax law in breach of EU law is challenged. Accordingly, this narrative of “protection of EU rights” which is embedded within article 267 TFEU enables the Court to adopt the role of a constitutional court assessing the compatibility of national law with EU law. The current asymmetries and conceptual mismatches of the substantive case law in the field of direct taxation are firmly anchored in a preliminary reference procedure in which the Court, as a constitutional court, is endowed with discretionary powers to drive it.

Aussi loin que l’on remonte dans le temps, la protection de l’intérêt général est associée au système des brevets. Pourtant, ce concept flou a suscité une vive controverse au sujet du brevet pharmaceutique souvent accusé d’être un obstacle à l’accès aux innovations pharmaceutiques et de perpétuer la fracture sociale. À vrai dire, le brevet est un instrument juridique au service d’enjeux socio-économiques; il confère à l’invention une valeur marchande et n’a pas vocation à être un obstacle à l’accès aux innovations pharmaceutiques. En effet, des études concordantes ont montré que, d’une part, sans le brevet une très grande proportion d’innovations pharmaceutiques ne serait pas mise au point et, d’autre part, l’écartement ou l’expiration du brevet n’ont pas été accompagnés d’un achat massif de produits pharmaceutiques. En tout état de cause, le monopole lié au brevet est précaire et le refus du brevet pharmaceutique s’accompagnera, sans doute, d’un manque d’intérêt à investir dans les activités de recherche et développement pharmaceutiques. En outre, le droit des brevets apporte assez de correctifs pour favoriser la disponibilité des innovations pharmaceutiques pour résoudre le problème de leur accès. Cette thèse sort des sentiers battus pour proposer une relecture du brevet pharmaceutique, sous l’angle de l’analyse économique du droit; elle démontre qu’il sert l’intérêt général. La théorie suivant laquelle le brevet pharmaceutique protège et promeut l’intérêt général n’est pas liée à la question de l’accès aux innovations pharmaceutiques; elle s’entend des intérêts scientifiques et socio-économiques qui y sont associés.

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment is a regulatory framework, which is unique to South Africa. This dissertation reflects upon the evolution of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment programme, from the commencement of apartheid to date. Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment was implemented by government, with the objective of resolving the injustices created by the apartheid regime. Government seeks to achieve this objective by integrating the historically disadvantaged individuals within South Africa into the mainstream of the economy. However, the reality is that the implementation of the Black Economic Empowerment programme has not been entirely successful. This dissertation is a critical analysis of the application of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment and related legislation. It aims to highlight the challenges faced by government in enforcing the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment programme, with a particular focus on the following issues: fronting, misrepresentations and common misperceptions. This dissertation begins by reflecting upon the historical context of South Africa toward democratization, secondly it analyses the current applicable legislation and explores the current issues. This research shows that Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment is essentially a work in progress programme as there is much room for improvement. Scholars have established that companies and other entities regularly circumvent the Act. Furthermore, many individuals misunderstand the programme and its purpose. The research concludes Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment does have potential for success. In considering the approach taken by Malaysia, it is established that the key to overcome these major issues is education.

This thesis challenges the traditional view of national contract laws as facilitative regimes and argues that contract law on the national level has been progressively re-oriented to perform an efficiency-driven regulatory function. To develop the argument the thesis studies the contract law remedial regime of two common law and one civil law jurisdiction – the US, England and Bulgaria, in two specific contracts – the sale-of-goods and the construction contract. The introductory chapter puts the main theme in context and outlines the project. Exploring the limits of promissory theory and neoclassical economics, the second chapter develops an innovative interdisciplinary methodology joining the new institutional economics with the comparative law method. The third, fourth and fifth chapters offer taxonomies of remedies, types of contracts and remedial effects to set the stage for a meaningful comparison across the different legal traditions. Since economic theory has advanced most in the study of incentives generated by damages, the third chapter focuses on the latter remedy and shows that the common law classification of damage measures (expectation, reliance, restitution), on which traditional law-and-economics accounts are based, can be applied to study a civil law jurisdiction like Bulgaria. Distinguishing discrete and long-term contracts and demonstrating that the differentiation between sale-of-goods and construction contracts in the compared national legal systems does not necessarily go along the lines of the discrete/long-term distinction in economics, the fourth chapter argues that the positive comparison should be made with an eye on the market for substitute performances even if the compared factual scenarios are classified under different legal categories in the different jurisdictions. For the uninitiated, the fifth chapter reconstructs and criticises the standard economic model rationalising damages as incentives. The final chapter applies the approach developed here to contractual termination. The exemplary analysis identifies trends in the compared legal systems and suggests that all of them converge in charging the termination remedy with a regulatory function. Finally, I generalise to make some bolder claims about contract law.

This thesis discusses jurisdiction to tax cross-border digital commerce. The primary objective is to consider the reasons for the erosion of jurisdictional links, or nexus, between countries and taxpayers' digital activities and evaluate possible solutions for addressing such nexus erosion. Whilst it is argued that digital commerce is impossible to ring-fence due to digital technologies transcending all industries, the main focus of this research is on automated business models as case studies for the broader tax issues applicable across the entire digital economy. Using cloud computing, online advertising and e-tailing models as examples of digital commerce in the narrow sense, this thesis demonstrates that the proxies for establishing jurisdictional nexus have become increasingly fluid, thereby challenging the traditional international tax regimes for profits and consumption taxation. Numerous policy solutions have been proposed in order to rectify nexus erosion, including global and territorial tax models. Unlike the previous research in this area, this thesis focuses on the nexus elements of such proposals and assesses their viability in the light of the wider Internet governance jurisprudence. Global tax solutions, such as global e-commerce taxes and formulary apportionment, are analysed in the context of the international governance regime for the technical Internet infrastructure. Territorial virtual tax solutions, such as virtual permanent establishments, withholding taxes and destination cash flow taxes, are considered in the light of the Internet jurisprudence on the 'effects' and 'targeting' nexus standards. It is argued that, given the lack of technical and political infrastructure, none of the proposed routes would be viable from a practical perspective in the near future. It is concluded, therefore, that a practical solution would involve retaining the traditional profits and consumption tax models, whilst testing a narrow version of the digital targeting nexus standard as a backstop anti-abuse measure. It is envisaged that the limited anti-avoidance provision would subsequently pave the way for a comprehensive long-term solution, as digitisation continues to transform global commerce.

Anonim şirket pay sahiplerinin temel amacı, şirkete koydukları sermaye karışlığında kâr elde etmek ve bu elde ettikleri kârı artırmaktır. Kâr dağıtımı ve şartları genel olarak Türk Ticaret Kanunu'nda düzenlenmiş olup, uygulamada da kâr dağıtımı bu düzenlemelere göre yapılmaktadır. Ancak vergi kanunlarında ve uygulamasında, Ticaret Kanunu'ndaki bu düzenlemeler dışındaki bazı ödemeler için de "örtülü kâr" nitelendirmesi yapılmıştır. Örtülü kâr dağıtımı konusu, genellikle vergi hukukçuları tarafından ele alınan bir konu olup, bu konu şimdiye kadar kâr payının temel unsurlarının düzenlendiği ticaret hukuku açısından detaylı olarak ele alınmamıştır. Bu nedenle hem vergi kanunları, hem de Türk Ticaret Kanunu kapsamında kâr dağıtımının, hangi hallerde örtülü olduğunun ele alınması gerekmektedir. Bunun yanında Sermaye Piyasası Kanunu'nda örtülü kâr dağıtımına benzer uygulamaların olup olmadığı ve halka açık anonim şirketler açısından konunun öneminin de ortaya konulması, meselenin daha net ele alınmasını sağlayacaktır. Çalışmamızda bu amaca yönelik tespitler yapılmış olup, konu tüm yönleri ile ele alınmıştır. İncelemelerimiz sonucunda; vergi kanunlarında "örtülü kâr" olarak nitelendirilen haksız menfaat ödemelerinin, Ticaret Kanunu'ndaki "kâr payı" düzenlemeleri ile açıkça çeliştiğini değerlendirmekteyiz. Bu nedenle vergi güvenliği amacıyla yapılmış da olsa "örtülü kâr dağıtımı" nitelendirmesinin ticaret hukuku genel ilkeleri ile çeliştiği tespitinde bulunduk. Çalışmamızda bu değerlendirmenin gerekçelerini ortaya koymaya gayret ettik. The principal purpose of the shareholders in a joint-stock company is to get profit in consideration of the capital provided and to increase the level of such profit. The profit distribution and the relevant conditions are defined in the Turkish Commercial Law in general and the profit distribution in practice is performed according to these stipulations. However, there is the term i.e. "concealed profit" for some payments in the tax laws and practice apart from these stipulations in the Commercial Law. The concealed profit distribution is a subject that is generally handled by the tax jurists and this subject has not been studied in detail so far in terms of trade law where the main factors of the dividend are defined. For this reason, it is necessary to study on the cases where the profit distribution is deemed ad "concealed" within the scope of both tax laws and Turkish Commercial Law. Besides, whether there are similar practices to the concealed profit distribution in the Capital Markets Law and putting forward the importance of this subject in terms of the public joint-stock companies will enable to handle the subject more clearly. The determinations for this purpose are provided in our study and this subject is handled in all aspects. As a result of our analysis, we have revealed that the unjust interest payments characterized as "concealed profit" in the tax laws are clearly in conflict with the stipulations of "dividend" in the Commercial Law, and therefore, "concealed profit distribution" conflicts with the general principles of trade law even though it is performed for tax safety. We have tried to put forward the justifications of this evaluation in our study.

S'interroger sur l'attractivité de l'hypothèque maritime en France suppose de la mettre en contact avec le mortgagede droit anglais (Partie I). Dès lors, à l'issue de l'étude de l'hypothèque conviendra-t-il de s'interroger sur l'opération de fiducie-sûreté appliquée au financement de navire (Partie II).

Using e-books as a case study, this thesis considers whether the principle of equal treatment could play a role in driving more consistent and rational regulation of markets where content is available in both tangible and intangible formats. At present, although the content is the same, these formats are often subject to different rules. This difference in treatment has opened up discussions about whether current legal frameworks should be amended and in these discussions actors with very different standpoints have consistently invoked the language of equality to justify their varied stances. However, in these discussions there is no clear elaboration of what equality means or how it can be used, leading to abstract debates and eventually to arbitrary decisions. The thesis attempts to fill this gap by building a framework based on outcome equality to decide if intangible book formats should be treated ‘like’ tangible ones. It uses the objective underlying the existing rule as the standard for establishing likeness or difference and advocates that functional equality, rather than formal equality, is desirable because this takes account of the differences in the functionalities between content formats: Intangibility impacts on the functioning of the rule in question (e.g. quantitatively increased ease of circulation and copying) and it is only if these impacts can be neutralized that functional equality can be achieved. The framework is applied to the case studies of copyright exhaustion, reduced rates of VAT and fixed book pricing. These have been chosen in recognition of the range of decision-making powers between the national and EU levels in this cultural sector. Overall, the analysis shows that rationality can be inserted by using equal treatment as a guide, but that consistency is more difficult to achieve given the interaction between national and EU influences in the book market.

Dans un contexte socio-économique dominé par la rapidité et la complexité des échanges, le sort du contractant est très souvent déterminé par sa position de vulnérabilité. Quelles formes prend cette vulnérabilité ? Quelles sont les idéologies, les valeurs et les critères de justice à partir desquels les mesures protectrices ont été édictées et mises en œuvre ? Ceux-ci tiennent-ils adéquatement compte de la vulnérabilité des parties ? Quelle place lui réservent les différentes réponses apportées par le droit des contrats ? Telles sont les questions sur lesquelles porte la présente étude sur la justice contractuelle dont l’objectif est de procéder à une analyse critique des fondements de la protection de la partie vulnérable. Ces derniers ne révèlent pas nécessairement l’existence d’une logique d’ensemble. Dans une perspective idéaliste, la moralité contractuelle et l’utilité économique du contrat sont les bases sur lesquelles la protection de la partie vulnérable a été envisagée. Appréhendée sur un plan individuel, la vulnérabilité du contractant repose sur l’idée d’une justice essentiellement réparatrice. Celle-ci est axée sur le respect de la bonne foi contractuelle et sur le désir de donner à chacune des parties les moyens de défendre ses intérêts. C’est donc de manière exceptionnelle que la vulnérabilité sera prise en compte. En réaction aux limites d’une protection faisant de l’existence d’un comportement fautif la condition de l’octroi de la protection, une vision réaliste de la sauvegarde des intérêts légitimes du contractant vulnérable a été mise de l’avant. Elle prend appui sur la dimension collective de la vulnérabilité du contractant. Il en résulte un régime de protection fondé sur la notion de relation et sur une conception objective de la justice. Toute chose qui se traduit soit par une protection technico-formaliste, soit par l’idée de solidarité faisant du contrat le lieu d’une communauté d’intérêts. Cependant, cette approche du contrat n’intègre pas forcément l’importance du rôle réservé à la volonté, ni les diverses catégories de contrats.

The Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) was established for the purpose of restoring legal and judicial security in the region to attract more investment. The OHADA Treaty included certain areas of business law within its ambit but omitted investment law. There are several laws on investment in the region at the national, regional and sub-regional level that regulate the treatment of foreign investments such as CEMAC and UEMOA investment charters. Moreover OHADA states sign BITs to protect foreign investments. The relationship between the different sub regional laws on investment and OHADA is not yet clear but case law suggests that CEMAC and UEMOA courts recognise the supremacy of OHADA law and their lack of competence to hear matters regulated under OHADA. The standards of protection granted by OHADA states in BITs are very high thus taxing on them. This thesis suggests that OHADA states should either qualify these standards of protection or replace them with more specific provisions. The OHADA system of arbitration cannot effectively settle investment disputes arising out of a BIT leaving international arbitration systems such as ICSID as the best alternative to resolve investment disputes arising out of BITs.

This thesis identifies and defines the new African sovereignty. It establishes a modern sovereignty in Africa hatched from the changing nature of sovereignty in which countries come together at various levels or grades of partial surrender of national sovereignty in order to work closer together for their mutual advantage and benefit. To this end, the narrative zooms in on the central issues within the realms of money matters whereby a new model of monetary sovereignty and monetary solutions is designed in an attempt to ease the recurring tensions and challenges of modern national sovereignty in the continent of Africa. As such, this discussion will offer a historical journey through the constitution of sovereignty, to the birth of the nation state and international public law. It develops the theory of the changing nature of sovereignty within the modern state and opens new lines of inquiry for Africa. In this regard, it draws from juxtaposing and mixing elements of regional and global financial integration as well as retaining national financial sovereignty features to form this new design which I dub continental sovereignty. At its core, the thesis will deal with the legal aspects that stem from the co-mingling of legal systems of nation states and communities at the regional and global levels within the context of financial integration. The argument is that the rule of law remains sacrosanct in monetary management. Effective financial integration is the result of properly structured and managed legal frameworks with robust laws and institutions whether at a national, regional or global level. However, the thesis reveals that in order to avoid undermining the progress of Africa’s financial integration project, any solution for Africa must be immersed within a broader global solution where development issues are addressed and resolved and Africa can form a more central part in all relevant international discussion fora. The work will expound these issues by applying them within a regional and global context, with the state of affairs in Africa forming the nucleus. This application consequently presents the six key themes of the thesis which will be considered therein. They are: a.) regional advantage: which exploits the possibilities of deeper and further financial integration between smaller communal arrangements; b.) regional risk and exposure: the extent to which this deeper form of financial integration can spiral out of control if effected too quickly and too ambitiously; c.) global advantage: which considers the merits of global financial integration and the influence exerted by financial laws on the global financial architecture; d.) global risk and exposure: which considers the challenges of global financial integration especially within the background of the Global Financial Crisis 2007-2008; e.) African challenge: which considers the extent to which this analysis impacts the African economic and financial integration agenda; and f.) development challenge: which examines the extent to which global development issues impact the African solution (continental sovereignty) and the need for any solution for the continent to be roped into a broader global solution within which Africa can form an important part. Even though the thesis requests an optimistic undertone on the progress made so far, it unearths the African problem of multiple national sovereignty and multiple overlapping regional sovereignty constituted as the ‘spaghetti bowl’ dilemma. As such, the unique contribution to knowledge on financial integration in Africa can be echoed in these words: Africa‘s financial integration agenda has had little success in authenticating a systematic and dependable legal framework for monetary management. Efforts made have been incomplete, substandard, and not carefully followed through particularly reflected in the impuissant nature of the judicial enforcement mechanisms. Thus, the thesis argues that, any meaningful answer to the problems dogging the continent is inter alia deeply entrenched within a new form of cooperative monetary sovereignty. In other words, the thesis does not prescribe the creation of new laws; rather it advocates the effective enforcement of existing laws.

This thesis articulates an optimum framework for the protection of expressions of folklore in Africa using a number of African countries – South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria as case studies. This thesis argues that the existing sui generis and intellectual property rights protection in African countries are grossly inadequate in protecting expressions of folklore in these countries. An optimum framework for the protection of expressions of folklore would constitute a combination of the positive and negative protective model elaborated and implemented through a human and people's rights framework that recognises that communities that produce expressions of folklore should own and control how their intellectual property is protected. While a positive protective model explores how intellectual property rights such as copyright, trademarks, designs and performances may protect expressions of folklore through the endowment of such rights on communities, negative protective models examine how state and national competent authorities protect expressions of folklore on behalf of communities. An optimum framework for the protection of expressions of folklore recognises that regional and international perspectives are critical for the protection of folklore in third party countries and expressions of folklore that occur in contiguous countries. A regional perspective is important for Africa countries because of two regional intellectual property organisations in Africa (ARIPO – African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation) and OAPI (African Intellectual Property Organisation) that have established minimum standards for the protection of expressions of folklore. Norm setting and standards in international organisations such as WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation); UNESCO (United Nations Educational Cultural and Scientific Organisation); and the WTO (World Trade Organisation) significantly impact the protection of expressions of folklore in Africa. A human and peoples' rights framework explores how national and regional legal systems in Africa recognise entitlements of communities in the protection of the expressions of folklore they produce. In this regard, the normative framework of communities in terms of their customary law is also explored.