Suchergebnisse

While many foreign commentators focus on the endangered democratic values in Poland and Hungary, the situation in Bulgaria is equally deplorable. If the President of the Supreme Court contends that there is no separation of powers and that his family is facing abuse because he turns down orders by the executive, then surely ordinary citizens, especially critics of the government, have no means to protect themselves from the rage of those who have captured the Bulgarian State.

The Severe Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic has dealt a universal challenge to contractual performance, but legal systems have responded differently. In this article, we focus on two jurisdictions with distinct paths of development – England and France – to examine if they have drawn from their own legal history to craft solutions to this challenge and to consider if either has bettersuited tools to address it. Notably, the UK has refrained from intervening in the area of contract law, thus relying on long-standing common law doctrines and equitable remedies, while, in France, the government has intervened with a series of ordonnances providing contracting parties with new tools tackling difficulties of performance, which add to the existing arsenal in the Code civil. The article demonstrates that the responses to the COVID-19 challenge by England and France have historic roots and illustrate important legal cultural differences vis-à vis state intervention in the area of contract in trying times. Moreover, even though, at first glance, parties contracting under French law have more tools balancing freedom of contract and fairness, a closer look reveals that over protection or under protection may lead to the same outcome for contractual relationships on both sides of the Channel. Ultimately, in both countries, parties seem better off settling their disputes themselves, away from the courts.

ABSTRACT
Dirty money is often a by-product or a symptom of political corruption in the jurisdictions in which it originates. It can also spread corruption and erode democracy on its journey to its final destination. This typically involves multiple jurisdictions and is the reason why it is so hard to detect. Recently, a series of money laundering scandals have highlighted weaknesses in the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) framework of the European Union (EU), the implementation of which remains the responsibility of Member States. The paper argues that EU's defences against money laundering have been weakened partly reflecting a little-known erosion in the independence of Member State central banks, which are often the AML supervisors. It puts forward a number of new proposals to strengthen the governance and AML/CFT implementation in the EU.