Disclosure Laws Research Articles

Litigating Corporate Human Rights Information

This article analyzes trends in litigation brought against corporate actors regarding human rights information. Such information includes, but is not limited to, statements on packaging claiming that products are “ethically sourced” and investor‐facing disclosures representing that an issuer's operations are environmentally friendly. It proceeds by outlining the sources of human rights‐related disclosures as they arise under both legal and voluntary regimes. The article then addresses the case law. Recent years have seen an increase in lawsuits involving human rights information, or lack thereof, imparted by companies. Consumer protection or consumer fraud cases are being filed, alleging that companies have either provided false and misleading information or omitted information about corporate human rights impacts and mitigation efforts. Investors are filing similar claims. The article examines the trend and considers the role of this litigation both in holding companies to their word and in providing corporate accountability for the underlying human rights abuses that false or misleading human rights information may mask. It ultimately argues that, although success at trial in such cases remains elusive, litigation is a useful and potentially growing tool for holding companies to their word regarding human rights claims. It contextualizes this litigation, arguing that other means by which companies can be held to their word should be strengthened, including public enforcement and—potentially—new disclosure and due diligence laws.

Implementation of Law Number 14 of 2008 on Public Information Transparency in the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI)

Purpose: The House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR-RI) is an institution that is mandated and represents the voice of the people who have directly voted through general elections. This representation function can be effective and have a real impact if the DPR is open to providing information to the public. However, in reality, the parliament's commitment to public information disclosure is still questioned by many elements of society. Many incidents have caused the public to doubt the DPR's commitment to public information disclosure, such as information and documents related to the revision of the KPK Law, the Omnibus Law Bill, and the Job Creation Bill, among others. This study aims to analyze the implementation of public information disclosure policies in the DPR-RI. Methodology: The research method used in this study is descriptive qualitative, where primary and secondary data are obtained through in-depth interviews with predetermined key informants and literature studies related to the research topic. Result: The research findings indicate that the implementation of the Public Information Disclosure Law in the DPR-RI is still not optimal, particularly in the utilization of information disclosure media and information resources. Contribution: This research will contribute to expanding theoretical and practical knowledge regarding the implementation of public information disclosure policies in legislative institutions as part of communication policy studies.

Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets

Climate change impacts threaten the stability of the US housing market. In response to growing concerns that increasing costs of flooding are not fully captured in property values, we quantify the magnitude of unpriced flood risk in the housing market by comparing the empirical and economically efficient prices for properties at risk. We find that residential properties exposed to flood risk are overvalued by US$121–US$237 billion, depending on the discount rate. In general, highly overvalued properties are concentrated in counties along the coast with no flood risk disclosure laws and where there is less concern about climate change. Low-income households are at greater risk of losing home equity from price deflation, and municipalities that are heavily reliant on property taxes for revenue are vulnerable to budgetary shortfalls. The consequences of these financial risks will depend on policy choices that influence who bears the costs of climate change.

Ordeal by innocence in the big‐data era: Intended data breach disclosure, unintended real activities manipulation

AbstractWe demonstrate an unintended consequence of mandatory disclosure of data breaches: the distortion of firms' real business activities. Employing the staggered adoption of data breach disclosure laws across various US states, we show that mandatory disclosure exacerbates CEOs' real earnings manipulation through production and operation management, which is more pronounced for firms of which the outbreak of data breaches is more of a concern and under stronger short‐term market pressure. The law adoption is associated with higher stock price crash risk and fewer patenting activities. Our findings reveal side effects of certain customer‐protection regulations in view of dampened information quality.

Do data breach disclosure laws matter to shareholder risk?

This paper examines whether and how data breach disclosure laws influence shareholder risk, which we measure by the firm's cost of equity capital. Exploiting a series of natural experiments regarding staggered state‐level data breach disclosure laws in the U.S., we find that the passage of mandatory disclosure laws leads to a decrease in the cost of equity. Accordingly, our key result suggests that shareholders perceive data breach disclosure laws as a risk-decreasing factor. Our finding is insensitive to alternative estimation methods, the choice cost of equity capital measures, and potential endogeneity concerns.

Childhood Lead Poisoning 1970-2022: Charting Progress and Needed Reforms.

Childhood lead poisoning prevention in the United States was marked by a largely failed medical approach from 1971 to 1990; an emergent (but small) healthy housing primary prevention strategy from 1991 to 2015; and implementation of large-scale proven interventions since then. Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention & Healthy Housing. Historic and recent health and housing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the American Healthy Homes Survey (AHHS) were retrieved to analyze trends and associated policy gaps. Approximately 590 000 US children aged 1 through 5 years had elevated blood lead levels of 3.5 μg/dL and greater in 2016, and 4.3 million children resided in homes with lead paint in 2019. Despite large improvements, racial and other disparities remain stubbornly and statistically significant. The NHANES and the AHHS require larger sample sizes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not published children's blood lead surveillance and NHANES data in several years; the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has no analogous housing surveillance system; and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have not updated training, Superfund, and occupational standards in decades. The nation has been without a plan and an associated budget for more than 2 decades. Congress has not reformed the nation's main lead poisoning prevention laws in more than 30 years. Such reforms include stopping US companies from producing new residential lead paint in other countries; enabling the disclosure law to identify all residential lead hazards; closing loopholes in federally assisted housing regulations and mortgage insurance standards; harnessing tax policy to help homeowners mitigate lead hazards; streamlining training requirements; increasing the size of health and housing surveys and surveillance systems; and updating housing codes, medical guidance, dust lead standards, training, Superfund, and worker exposure limits. Congress and the president should reauthorize a cabinet-level task force (dormant since 2010) to develop a new strategic plan with an interagency budget to implement it. These reforms will scale and optimize markets, subsidies, enforcement, and other proven interventions to end ineffective, costly, harmful, and irrational cost shifting that threatens children, workers, and affordable housing.

The Impact of Mandated Pay Gap Transparency on Firms’ Reputations as Employers

Mandated gender wage gap disclosure laws are an increasingly popular but relatively untested solution to gender-based compensation inequalities. Scholars and policymakers alike have argued that disclosure will lead to greater social accountability—either reputational harm for firms revealing large disparities or benefit for more-egalitarian organizations. Yet little research has directly tested this central assumption. We advance understanding of this issue by examining reactions from a key constituency affected by pay gaps: employees. We analyze the existence, magnitude, and persistence of changes in employees’ public affective evaluations of their employers on the review site Glassdoor in the wake of pay gap disclosures prompted by new regulations in the United Kingdom. We find a short-lived improvement in employees’ evaluations of organizations reporting pay parity, consistent with a reputational boost. At the same time, we find little evidence of a negative post-disclosure reaction from employees of firms reporting sizable gender-based disparities. We take an abductive approach to investigate these surprising findings, probing key assumptions and the viability of different plausible explanations for the results. We consider how our empirical findings can inform the development of novel theory in the areas of gender wage inequality, reputation, and transparency.

Disclosing decision makers’ private interests

I study whether a decision maker would make better decisions if his private interests were disclosed. I focus on a delegation relationship in which a decision maker attempts to build a good reputation. I compare the following two scenarios: a non-disclosure case in which the interest of the decision maker is private information and a disclosure case in which his interest is publicly known. I show that the disclosure of the private interests of the decision maker can only improve the decision made when reputation concerns are intermediate, and decision makers are sufficiently informed and public-spirited. Otherwise, disclosure can be detrimental because it induces decision makers to make decisions against their private interests too often. My framework provides a novel cautionary tale regarding the use of disclosure laws to address conflicts of interest.

Are there trade-offs with mandating timely disclosure of cybersecurity incidents? Evidence from state-level data breach disclosure laws

On March 23, 2022, the SEC proposed that firms publicly disclose their cybersecurity incidents within four days of discovery. In the U.S., state-level data breach disclosure laws require firms to disclose the occurrence of a data breach, with some mandating disclosure within a deadline while others do not. Exploiting this state-level variation in disclosure deadlines, we find that, when facing a deadline, firms disclose a data breach 90 percent faster but are 58 percent less likely to disclose breach details. Investors respond negatively to delayed breach disclosures but are forgiving of a delay when it is used to gather more breach details. Our study highlights the trade-offs of mandating a disclosure deadline for cybersecurity incidents.

Singapore's HIV disclosure law in the context of progress towards the 90-90-90 goals: A call for greater action in the Western Pacific

Singapore's courts sentenced a 48-year-old man in June 2022 to a year's imprisonment for failing to tell two people he had sex with that he was living with HIV, an offence under the city state's Infectious Diseases Act. The ruling came in spite of the man in question having medical evidence of being successfully virologically suppressed through antiretroviral therapy and thus at no risk of transmitting HIV to his partners.

The Effect Of International Law On The Establishment Of Public Information Disclosure Law In Indonesia

This study aims to analyze the influence of international law on the formation of public information disclosure law in Indonesia. The research method used in this research is normative juridical. Based on the results of the research, it is known that due to globalization, the freedom to obtain information is now a trend in the international world. Globalization is driving the recognition of human rights and democratization in all corners of the world. This international reality parallels the national reality. The strong determination to create a democratic country and respect for human rights which are explicitly stated in the Indonesian constitution have become an undeniable national reality. Both of these realities have the same goal of creating an information society. For Indonesia, this international reality and national reality have become the basis or reason for the birth of the information disclosure law, which is also known as the Indonesian information disclosure law policy.

The Effect Of International Law On The Establishment Of Public Information Disclosure Law In Indonesia

The Effect Of International Law On The Establishment Of Public Information Disclosure Law In Indonesia

Drafting video game loot box regulation for dummies: a Chinese lesson

ABSTRACT Loot boxes are virtual items in video games that players purchase to obtain randomised rewards of varying value. Such randomised monetisation methods are prevalently implemented globally. Loot boxes are conceptually and structurally akin to gambling, and their purchase is positively correlated with problem gambling in Western countries. Given the potential harms loot boxes may cause, particularly to vulnerable consumers, e.g. children, regulators and policymakers are paying increasing attention. Some countries, e.g. Belgium, have actively enforced existing gambling laws to ban certain loot box implementations. However, less restrictive regulatory approaches, e.g. requiring probability disclosures, are also being considered. Amendments to existing law and new laws dedicated to regulating loot boxes are likely forthcoming in many countries. Companies’ discretionary and suboptimal compliance with loot box probability disclosure law in the People’s Republic of China reveals how future loot box laws and industry self-regulations should be better drafted to ensure maximum consumer protection.

IMPLEMENTASI KETERBUKAAN INFORMASI PUBLIK (STUDI PADA WEBSITE PPID DESA SIDODADI KABUPATEN MUKOMUKO)

The born of Public Information Disclosure Laws of Indonesia as written on Act Number 14 Year 2008 causes all public body must actively provide transparent, complete, and clear information to the public. As an implementation of public information disclosure, Sidodadi Village is one of public body located in Mukomuko District must have an Information and Documentation Management Officer (shortened as PPID in Bahasa) website to disseminate information in accordance with the table of public information data availability of Mukomuko District. The objects the present study were contents contained in PPID website of Sidodadi Village. This study used qualitative content analysis model approach. The analysis performed toward text and picture on the website. With the presence of the website, the public information of Sidodadi Village can be accessed well by everyone, as long as they are connected with internet. We conclude that the website of Sidodadi Village has fulfilled the function as promotion, marketing, information, education and communication media.

Transparency in Private Collection of Federal Taxes

Most federal taxes are collected from taxpayers by business entities, held in a public trust for the United States, and then paid over to the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS). While the vast majority of business entities pay over the taxes held in trust in a timely and appropriate manner, a sizeable amount, in dollar terms, does not get paid. The amount of unpaid “collected” taxes in 2008 created a $58 billion tax gap item.Disclosure law governing federal taxes defaults to non-disclosure for most tax returns. This general rule of non-disclosure governs the returns reporting the taxes collected by business entities even though the information on these returns is information concerning a public trust. This article analyzes the federal tax disclosure laws and concludes that the amount of taxes collected on behalf of the United States and the amount of these collected taxes paid over to the IRS should be disclosed. Rather than coming under the general rule of non-disclosure which applies to income tax returns and other returns reporting the liability of an individual or entity for the payment of taxes, these returns should be treated like the returns of pension plans, which are open for the public to see.In addition to approaching the issue from the perspective of disclosure policy, the article also looks at the collection policy issues presented by the disclosure of this information. For the same policy reasons that Congress has decided compliance is enhanced by the disclosure of pension plans and the returns of exempt organizations, the article concludes that compliance would be enhanced by this proposal and the tax gap reduced.

Data pollution

Objective:to develop and substantiate the theory of data pollution, which makes it possible to realize and assess the harms the economy of big data creates.Methods:dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena, allowing to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the totality of objective and subjective factors, which predetermined the following research methods: formal-logical and sociological.Results:This article develops a novel framework – data pollution – to rethink the harms the data economy creates and the way they have to be regulated. The author argues that social intervention should focus on the external harms from collection and misuse of personal data. The article challenges the hegemony of the prevailing view that the injuries from digital data enterprise are exclusively private. That view has led lawmakers to focus solely on privacy protection as the regulatory objective. The article claims, instead, that a central problem in the digital economy has been largely ignored: how the information given by people affects others, and how it undermines and degrades public goods and interests.Scientific novelty:The data pollution concept offers a novel perspective why existing regulatory tools – torts, contracts, and disclosure law – are ineffective, mirroring their historical futility in curbing the harms from industrial pollution. The data pollution framework also opens up a rich roadmap for new regulatory devices – “an environmental law for data protection” – which focuses on controlling these external effects. The article examines how the tools used to control industrial pollution – production restrictions, carbon tax, and emissions liability – could be adapted to govern data pollution.Practical significance:the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activities when considering the issues related to the theory of data pollution.

Corporate social responsibility and green innovation: Evidence from mandatory CSR disclosure laws

Exploiting the staggered adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure laws as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that firms in countries that adopted CSR disclosure laws increased their green innovation output and quality relative to their counterparts.

Multidimensional corporate social responsibility disclosure and financial performance: A meta‐analytical review

AbstractThe emergence of various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure laws around the globe, in the past decade, indicates the significance of CSR for a country as well as for an organization. Organization belief CSR as a strategic tool for enhancing value, still evidence on how CSR disclosure affects financial performance has been inconclusive. To resolve the ambiguity presence in the literature, this study carried out a meta‐analytic investigation based on 168 effect sizes from 73 empirical studies. This study employs a multivariate framework to explore the potential moderators that leads to conflicting results among the focal relationship of the study. The study discovers that if CSR disclosure strategy and measurement technique are adequately addressed with the help of econometric tools, then the true effect of CSR can be observed. Moreover, implications are drawn for academicians and practitioners interested in exploring the relationship between CSR disclosure and financial performance.

The Law and Economics of Equity Swap Disclosure

The Law and Economics of Equity Swap Disclosure

Data Protection by Definition – Report on the Law of Data Disclosure in Japan

Data Protection by Definition – Report on the Law of Data Disclosure in Japan