Contract Rules Research Articles

PrivySharing: A blockchain-based framework for privacy-preserving and secure data sharing in smart cities

The ubiquitous use of Internet of Things (IoT) ranges from industrial control systems to e-Health, e-commerce, smart cities, agriculture, supply chain management, smart cars, cyber-physical systems and a lot more. However, the data collected and processed by IoT systems especially the ones with centralized control are vulnerable to availability, integrity, and privacy threats. Hence, we present “PrivySharing,” a blockchain-based innovative framework for privacy-preserving and secure IoT data sharing in a smart city environment. The proposed scheme is distinct from existing strategies on many aspects. The data privacy is preserved by dividing the blockchain network into various channels, where every channel comprises a finite number of authorized organizations and processes a specific type of data such as health, smart car, smart energy or financial details. Moreover, access to users’ data within a channel is controlled by embedding access control rules in the smart contracts. In addition, data within a channel is further isolated and secured by using private data collection and encryption respectively. Likewise, the REST API that enables clients to interact with the blockchain network has dual security in the form of an API Key and OAuth 2.0. The proposed solution conforms to some of the significant requirements outlined in the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. We also present a system of reward in the form of a digital token named “PrivyCoin” for users sharing their data with stakeholders/third parties. Lastly, the experimental outcomes advocate that a multi-channel blockchain scales well as compared to a single-channel blockchain system.

Zakaz praktyk nieuczciwie wykorzystujących przewagę kontraktową jako reguła kontraktowa przy zawieraniu umów z rolnikami

The existing legal instruments in the area of trade in agricultural and food products in Poland were considered by the Polish legislature to be insufficient, which was an impetus for legislative work finalized by the adoption of the act on counteracting the unfair use of contractual advantage in the trade in agricultural and food products on 15 December 2016. The purpose of the research described in the article was to determine the normative dimension of the concept of unfair use of contractual advantage and the assessment of admissibility de lege lata for farmers to rely on protection under the provisions of the aforementioned Act of 2016. The analyses have led to the conclusion that the ban on practices of unfair use of contractual advantage should be seen as a new, not yet crystallized, contract rule applicable to concluding contracts specified in this act, including contracts with farmers.

Justice for Contracts

This Article develops a theory of just contractual relationships for a liberal society and demonstrates its manifestations in vast areas of modern contract law. As a liberal theory, properly-called, our account is premised on the canonical commitments of liberalism to self-determination and substantive equality. As a theory of contract law, it focuses on the parties’ interpersonal interaction, rather than on the justice of the social order as a whole. As a theory of just contractual relationships, it attends to the justness of both the formation of contracts and of their implications. After surveying and criticizing the leading competing theories of contractual justice, we explain how relational justice – namely: reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality – both justifies the enforcement of contracts and prescribes a mandatory floor of contractual justice. This floor explains the rules that regulate the parties’ bargaining process in a way that goes beyond the traditional laissez faire mode of proscribing only the active interference of one party with the other’s free will. It thus accounts for the expansion of the law of fraud beyond the traditional categories of misrepresentation and concealment to include also affirmative duties of disclosure. The same conceptual expansion also underlies doctrines as diverse as unilateral mistake, duress, anti-price-gouging laws, and admiralty rules of salvage. Finally, concern for relational justice offers the most charitable explanation of unconscionability doctrine and some of its modern regulatory cognates. The justice of an on-going contract presents an additional challenge because the typically sequential contractual performance generates heightened interpersonal vulnerability. This is why modern contract law solidifies a cooperative conception of contract performance that goes beyond the mandatory floor of relational justice. The duty of good faith and fair dealing, which sets up the contractual rules of the game, stands at the core of this web of doctrines. The substantial performance doctrine in service contracts and the principle against forfeiture in applying the condition/promise distinction, as well as the burden to mitigate and the choice of the expectation interest as the default measure of recovery can likewise be interpreted as belonging to this cooperative framework. All these doctrines require contractual parties to assist each other up to a point. Here, relational justice is functioning not as a floor, but rather as an aspirational idea, one that informs contract law’s normative defaults.

Factors Influencing the Health and Safety of Temporary Foreign Workers in Skilled and Low-Skilled Occupations in Canada.

This article reports on a study of occupational health and safety (OHS) challenges for temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in low- and high-skilled occupations, based on twenty-two cases drawn from a broader study in three Canadian provinces. Interviewees in construction, meat processing, hospitality, and fast food reported concerns regarding working conditions and OHS issues. They include precarious migration status affecting voice; contrasting access to social support; and mechanisms undermining regulatory effectiveness. Sources of vulnerability include closed work permits (making workers dependent on a single employer for job security and family reunification); ineffective means to ensure contractual compliance; and TFW invisibility attributable to their dispersal throughout the labor market. Violations include increased workload without an increase in pay and non-compliance with OHS and contractual rules without oversight. Positive and negative practices are discussed. Recommendations include improving migration security to preserve worker voice and facilitating communication between immigration and OHS authorities.

Mixed linear and non-linear recursive types

We describe a type system with mixed linear and non-linear recursive types called LNL-FPC (the linear/non-linear fixpoint calculus). The type system supports linear typing which enhances the safety properties of programs, but also supports non-linear typing as well which makes the type system more convenient for programming. Just like in FPC, we show that LNL-FPC supports type-level recursion which in turn induces term-level recursion. We also provide sound and computationally adequate categorical models for LNL-FPC which describe the categorical structure of the substructural operations of Intuitionistic Linear Logic at all non-linear types, including the recursive ones. In order to do so, we describe a new technique for solving recursive domain equations within the category CPO by constructing the solutions over pre-embeddings. The type system also enjoys implicit weakening and contraction rules which we are able to model by identifying the canonical comonoid structure of all non-linear types. We also show that the requirements of our abstract model are reasonable by constructing a large class of concrete models that have found applications not only in classical functional programming, but also in emerging programming paradigms that incorporate linear types, such as quantum programming and circuit description programming languages.

Elements and conditions of penalty clause validity in banking contracts

Considering that the nature of the delayed payment has been announced non-canonical, during the legal developments after the 1979 revolution in Iran, the demand of this recompense depends on its being predicted on the terms of contract conclusion. The quantitative and qualitative importance of these kind of contracts in banking, and the existence of different judicial treatment with them, convinced the author to study about “Principles and conditions of the accuracy of collateral contract recompense term in banking contracts”. In this article In addition to the study of Principles and conditions of the accuracy of “terms of delayed payment contract recompense” (collateral), this is also emphasized that “Legal delayed payment recompense” is different from “Contractual delayed payment recompense”. Therefore, the foundations, nature, effects and also principles and circumstances of these two recompenses should be considered separately. Otherwise the uncertainties and confusion would increase. Whereas judgmental procedure could not escape from these uncertainties and confusion. In this article, according to the general rules of contracts and the accuracy of collateral terms and topics, and also bank rules, The main Principles and conditions of contract recompenses has been extracted and studied. And the result showed that deviation from these Principles and conditions, may be encounter with execution guarantee of the original contract termination or termination of the term of recompense. While the attention to these Principles and conditions makes the distinction between contract recompense and usury doubtfulness.

An Improved Fuzzy Min–Max Neural Network for Data Classification

Hyperbox classifier is an efficient tool for modern pattern classification problems due to its transparency and rigorous use of Euclidian geometry. Fuzzy min–max (FMM) network efficiently implements the hyperbox classifier, and has been modified several times to yield better classification accuracy. However, the obtained accuracy is not up to the mark. Therefore, in this paper, a new improved FMM (IFMM) network is proposed to increase the accuracy rate. In the proposed IFMM network, a modified constraint is employed to check the expandability of a hyperbox. It also uses semiperimeter of the hyperbox along with k -nearest mechanism to select the expandable hyperbox. In the proposed IFMM, the contraction rules of conventional FMM and enhanced FMM (EFMM) are also modified using semiperimeter of a hyperbox in order to balance the size of both overlapped hyperboxes. Experimental results show that the proposed IFMM network outperforms the FMM, k- nearest FMM, and EFMM by yielding more accuracy rate with less number of hyperboxes. The proposed methods are also applied to histopathological images to know the best magnification factor for classification.

LNL-FPC: The Linear/Non-linear Fixpoint Calculus

We describe a type system with mixed linear and non-linear recursive types called LNL-FPC (the linear/non-linear fixpoint calculus). The type system supports linear typing, which enhances the safety properties of programs, but also supports non-linear typing as well, which makes the type system more convenient for programming. Just as in FPC, we show that LNL-FPC supports type-level recursion, which in turn induces term-level recursion. We also provide sound and computationally adequate categorical models for LNL-FPC that describe the categorical structure of the substructural operations of Intuitionistic Linear Logic at all non-linear types, including the recursive ones. In order to do so, we describe a new technique for solving recursive domain equations within cartesian categories by constructing the solutions over pre-embeddings. The type system also enjoys implicit weakening and contraction rules that we are able to model by identifying the canonical comonoid structure of all non-linear types. We also show that the requirements of our abstract model are reasonable by constructing a large class of concrete models that have found applications not only in classical functional programming, but also in emerging programming paradigms that incorporate linear types, such as quantum programming and circuit description programming languages.

Safeguarding the posted worker. A private international law perspective

This article examines the protection measures and the law applicable to posted workers. As a general rule, the Rome I Regulation designates the law to be applied to transnational individual employment contracts. In the context of postings, however, this is supplemented by certain safeguards foreseen in the Posting of Workers Directive. This paper analyses the interrelationship between the core set of employment terms as regulated in the Directive and the conflict-of-law rules for employment contracts in the Rome I Regulation. The article takes a critical look at the key problems in the legal regime applicable to posted workers under the Directive and its 2018 amendment. Special attention is first given to the question of determining the habitual workplace of a posted worker, then to the temporary nature of postings, and subsequently to the question of remuneration guaranteed to posted workers. The legal nature of national transposing measures of the Directive and national provisions entailing the core set of employment terms will also be analysed in order to explicate the interface of the two instruments. The paper will subsequently examine the application of the preferential approach.

Anatomy of Public Procurement

We provide novel stylized facts about competition, bidding, entry and bidders across a wide spectrum of public procurement auctions using comprehensive and rich Finnish data. Competition for publicly procured contracts is relatively low with a median bidder count of two (three conditional on receiving any bids). Bidders typically are very heterogeneous in size, which likely limits competition further. Competition seems to work roughly as expected as on average (standardized) bids mainly decrease with the number of actual and potential bidders. Using information on registrations as a good proxy for potential bidders, we show that the ratio of actual to potential bidders increases with the number of actual bidders. We also show that being present in the contracting authority's municipality or province correlates positively with registering, entry (bidding) and winning, but other firm characteristics matter less. While attracting more competition by means of contract and auction rule design is a desirable policy goal and we show suggestive evidence that the use of scoring rule can be an entry barrier, increasing competition may be in practice difficult. Therefore, reservation prices may be a more useful policy tool to alleviate issues associated with the lack of competition.

The Anticompetitive Effect of Vertical Most-Favored-Nation Restraints and the Error of Amex

This Essay explains why the Supreme Court’s economic reasoning in its recent Ohio v. American Express Co. (“Amex”) decision is wrong. The Amex case involved the use of what are called “antisteering” restraints in which a retailer is not allowed to use a variety of tactics to steer a consumer away from using an American Express (“Amex”) card and toward using another payment mechanism. The reason why a merchant might want to do this is because the cost that the merchant incurs when a customer uses an Amex card can be higher than the cost that the merchant incurs when the customer uses either another credit card, debit card, or cash. Although not challenged in the Amex case, the Amex contractual rules also prevent a retailer from imposing a surcharge on customers who use an Amex card to reflect the higher merchant cost. It is interesting to note that some countries—such as Australia—have regulated certain credit card fees, others have forbidden credit card companies from telling merchants that they cannot surcharge, and some states in the United States—such as New York—have forbidden merchants from surcharging. Restraints on surcharging or steering are examples of restraints that Ralph Winter and I call “vertical most-favored-nation restraints,” (“vMFN”) in which one supplier tells a retailer that the retailer cannot set the retail price of its product higher than that of a rival, even if its wholesale price is higher than that of its rival. Such restraints have been the subject of some litigation already, but I expect that with the increasing use of web based platforms where such restraints are often used, litigation regarding such restraints will increase. This Article illustrates the underlying economic logic behind the anticompetitive effect of vMFNs. I then apply the reasoning to credit cards and finally, using the economic framework developed, explain the economic errors in the Court’s Amex decision. For a more detailed discussion, please see the Carlton and Winter paper referenced herein.

Market Size, International Trade, and Institutional Quality

Institutions, such as contract enforcements and rule of law, are arguably one of the most important determinants of economic development. This paper exploits the insight into the relation between geography and economies of scale and investigates how the market size and international trade affect institutional quality. I adopt an incomplete-contract approach to model institutions. Due to contract incompleteness, a firm can hold up its suppliers and distort production. When the effective market size facing firms is larger, due to trade liberalization, or increases in population or numbers of trading partners, benevolent governments have incentive to improve institutional quality to facilitate production to meet the larger demand. Interestingly, in my multiple-country framework, the competition in institutional quality also matters in a Nash-equilibrium sense. The institutional qualities increase in trade-liberalized countries whereas those in the non-liberalized ones may decrease. This paper also empirically shows the positive impact of real effective market size on institutional quality, supporting the model.

Modeling and discrete event simulation in industrial systems considering consumption and electrical energy generation

This paper presents the application of the Discrete Event Simulation (DES) in an industrial plant to analyze the behavior of the consumption and generation of electrical energy in conjunction with other variables of the process. In other words, the process modeling was conducted considering the energy consumption in equipment as well as the local photovoltaic (PV) energy generation. A medium-sized plant was the reference base used herein, and the main variables considered were the time of supply of tanks and processing of raw material, active power of equipment and energy tariffs. A simulation model with resolution in seconds was designed, enabling the simulation of consumption curves of each equipment of a given part of the production process. The equipment of variable active demand was modeled by a mathematical regression method, and the others were assumed with constant power. The same model was altered to unit in minutes for simulating the monthly electricity consumption, so as to obtain financial results. The contractual rules for electricity supply were included, and the use of a diesel-powered generator was taken into account. The application of a freeware was employed as a low cost alternative for small and medium-sized companies, even though the lack of graphic resources has increased the complexity of the system modeling process. The model with resolution in seconds proved to be efficient to simulate the consumption profile of a specific equipment that alters the power in a short-time period, such as the pumps. The model, on the other hand, in minutes allowed a more effective analysis in terms of finance, enabling the verification of alternative scenarios throughout a month. The monthly cost reduction perceived by considering self-generation in this model was about 36%.

On the decision problem for MELL

In this short paper I will exhibit several mistakes in the recent attempt by Bimbó [3] to prove the decidability of the multiplicative exponential fragment of linear logic (MELL). In fact, the main mistake is so serious that there is no obvious fix, and therefore the decidability of MELL remains an open problem. As a side effect, this paper contains a complete (syntactic) proof of the decidability of the relevant version of MELL (called RMELL in this paper), that is the logic obtained from MELL by replacing the linear logic contraction rule by a general unrestricted version of the contraction rule. This proof can also be found (with a small error) in [3], and a semantic proof can be found in [35].

Public Procurement Reform for Ease in Doing Business

Public procurement is one area needing governmental reforms. It is largely governed by dated rules that businesses feel are not able to encompass the complex needs of a modernising Indian economy. They also feel that there is a plethora of public contract rules often not in harmony with each other creating confusion and giving opportunity for corruption. However, the Modi regime’s anti-corruption mandate should not stifle business initiative that is the main critique against the Public Procurement Bill (2012). An amended public procurement law should inter alia be comprehensive in its coverage. It should incorporate new forms of tendering to cover complex procurement situations, maintain balance between the cost and the quality in tender awards, check abuse of monopoly in single-source procurement, prevent ‘digital divide’ in transparency provisions, maintain balance between external openness and promotion of domestic economy in market access provisions, encourage sustainable public procurement, incorporate effective mechanisms for redressing grievances of bidders and avoid penal provisions punishing offences covered by existing laws. Regulatory reform in public procurement will have substantial economic impact, as government contracts annually average approximately 30 per cent of India’s GDP and cover almost every sphere of government activity. Hence, such a reform will improve India’s anti-corruption/ease of doing business global rankings.

The Contribution of China’s Civil Law to Sustainable Development: Progress and Prospects

Environmental protection is mainly the focus of environmental law in China, but as China has started to pursue ecological civilization, its civil law has begun to respond to environmental problems as well, which is called the “greening of civil law”. As a result, the newly passed General Provisions of Civil Law adopted a “Green Principle” requiring private actors to contribute to resources conservation and environmental protection in civil activities. Through normative and comparative analysis, this article explores the establishment of the “Green Principle”, the rationales for civil law’s response to environmental problems in China, the progress already made, and the further efforts that are needed. It argues that the major challenge for the greening of China’s civil law at present is the modification of the subsequent sections of the forthcoming civil code. Despite the progress that has already been made, further efforts are needed regarding the following aspects: environmental and resources protection should be taken into account in contract rules concerning the validity, performance, and interpretation of contracts, and rules on emission trading contracts should be added; the property section should stipulate the unified exercise of state ownership over natural resources; and the “personality rights” section should stipulate environmental rights so as to clarify the right that is violated in environmental public interest litigation.

Factors Influencing the Health and Safety of Temporary Foreign Workers in Skilled and Low-Skilled Occupations in Canada

This article reports on a study of occupational health and safety (OHS) challenges for Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) in low- and high-skilled occupations, based on twenty-two cases drawn from a broader study in three Canadian provinces. Interviewees in construction, meat processing, hospitality, and fast food reported concerns regarding working conditions and OHS issues. They include: precarious migration status affecting voice; contrasting access to social support; and mechanisms undermining regulatory effectiveness. Sources of vulnerability include: closed work permits (making workers dependent on a single employer for job security and family reunification); ineffective means to ensure contractual compliance; and TFW invisibility attributable to their dispersal throughout the labor market. Violations include increased workload without an increase in pay and non-compliance with OHS and contractual rules without oversight. Positive and negative practices are discussed. Recommendations include improving migration security to preserve worker voice and facilitating communication between immigration and OHS authorities.

A Study on the Scope of the Rules of Construction Contract in DCFR

A Study on the Scope of the Rules of Construction Contract in DCFR

Pravna (ne)sigurnost ugovora o lizingu nepokretnosti u savremenom srpskom pravu

The article focuses on legal insecurity under different forms of real estate lease contracts, present in contemporary Serbian law. Applying dogmatic and comparative legal methods, the authors explore the characteristics of domestic legal regime of real estate lease contracts, with special emphasis on possible application of rules of other nominate contracts to real estate lease contracts. In contemporary Serbian law only real estate financial leases are regulated, while other forms of real estate leases are not. Potential problems stemming from insufficient regulation are also evidenced in court decisions related to disputes originating from one of the innominate forms of real estate leases in Serbia. The analysis of these decisions points to issues causing legal insecurity under real estate lease contracts, which could be overcome through adequate amendments and supplements to the regulations. In this article, the authors propose specific solutions for regulating real estate lease contracts de lege ferenda, which the authors conclude are the best approach for overcoming the existing shortcomings.

The Christmas Conundrum

Often conflicts arises between stakeholders of a firm. Instances where one stakeholder’s needs conflict with the rights of other stakeholders can put managers in a precarious situation. Strict adherence to contract rules, for example, may be the absolute right of the firm but at the same time enforcement of that contractual right or rule may be unduly damaging to another stakeholder. Managers in these situations may seek to find a balancing act between the two conflicting sides in order to maintain the balance that prioritizes the competing and conflicting responsibilities. The following case study, based on an actual managerial decision in an industrial setting, seeks to bring the lessons of balancing competing interests into harmony, as best as possible, in order to pursue the survival and success of the enterprise while realizing that all stakeholders are vital to the said success and survival.