Grant Licenses Research Articles

Barriers to entry and exit in the mobile service sector in Algeria

The aim of this study is to determine the nature of the entry barriers and the exit barriers in the mobile service sector in Algeria, this is because thesebarriers directly affect in the structure of the sector , especially in terms of thedegree of competition in it, We found that Algeria's mobile service sector wascharacterized by natural entry barriers associated with economies of scaleand capital requirements, as well as concentration on the research and thedevelopment which is characterized by the sector especially on the level ofequipment and services. There are also legal entry barriers imposed by theARPT, which regulate competition and grant licenses…, The legal entrybarriers play a key role in influencing the degree of the competition especiallyin reducing the entry of new institutions. The sector also includes strategicentry barriers, particularly in the control of dealers on distribution channelsin the sector. In addition to barriers to entry the sector also has barriers to exit, as thesector is provides thousands of direct and indirect jobs, and the association ofthe sector's institutions with other sectors, which is reflected in the variousoffers to institutions, the sector is also subject to the licensing system grantedin person for a period of 15 years so that it may not be waived or the rightsresulting there from, except with the consent of the donor body which hindersthe exit from the sector .

Evaluation of Regulatory Governance of the National Electric Power Sector of Pakistan

This study will try to evaluate the regulatory governance of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA). The authority was formed in 1997 to overcome the inefficiencies of Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) (now K-electric) and to improve the power sector through good regulations. Moreover, it was supposed to protect the interests of consumers, investors, and operators equally through its autonomy, professionalism, transparency, and credibility. Furthermore, it must grant licenses, determine tariffs and rates, ensure quality service, provide a feasible environment for privatization, and redress the complaints of electricity consumers. This study incorporates both qualitative and quantitative techniques. That is why, even after 23 years, the authority has not yet overcome the issues in the power industry. The study found that the lack of specialists, the lack of autonomy, and the lack of openness and accountability handicapped the government. This study has tried to highlight those problems which hinder the progress of NEPRA and suggested some policy recommendations for its improvement by granting autonomy, enhancing professionalism, a good complaint readdress mechanism, and inclusive in decision-making. This study has highlighted the most ignored prospects of energy regulations, which the authority has been missing for a long time, for enhancing the regulatory governance of energy

From metaphor to political spin: Understanding criticisms of the social licence

Disagreements about the nature and utility of the social licence concept can be traced to different assumptions about the political influence of those who grant and receive it. In business, some see the social licence as a risk management framework. Critics claim that in practice it is public relations spin covering up social irresponsibility by extractive companies. Still others see it as spin used by eco-leftists to justify appropriating a veto for themselves. I review the literature on social licence grantors and grantees and propose that members of the private, public and civic sectors are mutual grantors and withholders of each others’ social licences. I invoke the concept of inter-sectoral rivalry for control the discourses that grant or withdraw social licences. When one sector dominates the others, its preferred discourse about the social licence gets enacted. The non-dominant sectors defend themselves by criticizing that justification narrative. To the extent that one sector can dominate, there will be political criticism of the social licence from the rival sectors. Empirically determining who dominates the discourse can advance both scholarly study of the social licence and the practical application of it by any type of organization.

Government Companies as Regulators

AbstractIn 2016 the government established a new sectoral regulator, with power to grant and withdraw licences, set performance standards, and impose sanctions, not as a statutory authority but in the form of a company wholly owned by the Secretary of State: the Oil and Gas Authority. This article critically examines this and other uses in the UK of government‐owned or ‐ controlled companies to discharge public regulatory functions, against the background of current government practice regarding arm's length public bodies in general and government companies in particular. It assesses the acceptability of the company form by reference to criteria of democratic control, independence and accountability of regulatory institutions.

The Effect of Competition Law on Patent Remedies

Although competition law and IP law probably pursue complementary goals, competition laws can: (i) affect remedies available for patent infringement; and/or otherwise, (ii) limit the conduct of patentees, particularly when transferring or licensing their patents. This chapter discusses the cases in which tensions between the protection of patents in complex products and the competition laws have arisen or may arise, particularly as regards the ability of owners of standard essential patents (SEPs) to monetise their patents either by seeking an injunction against implementers or by refusing to grant licences complying with previously given commitments—generally, commitments to license on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. This chapter also examines potential competition law constraints on the pricing of patent licences, other licensing terms, multi-level licensing and level discrimination, patent pools, sale of patent portfolios and patent acquisitions.

Rearing performances and environmental assessment of sea cage farming in Tunisia using life cycle assessment (LCA) combined with PCA and HCPC

The present study aims to understand the influence of rearing practices and the contributions of production phases of fish farming to their environmental impacts and determine which practices and technical characteristics can best improve the farms’ environmental performance. Another objective is to identify the influence of variability in farming practices on the environmental performances of sea cage aquaculture farms of sea bass and sea bream in Tunisia by using principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering on principal components (HCPC) methods and then combining the classification with life cycle assessment (LCA). The approach consisted of three major steps: (i) of the 24 aquaculture farms in Tunisia, 18 were selected which follow intensive rearing practices in sea cages of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) and then a typology was developed to classify the studied farms into rearing practice groups using HCPC; (ii) LCA was performed on each aquaculture farm and (iii) mean impacts and contributions of production phases were calculated for each group of farms. Impact categories included acidification, eutrophication, global warming, land occupation, total cumulative energy demand and net primary production use. Results revealed high correlation between rearing practices and impacts. The feed-conversion ratio (FCR), water column depth under the cages and cage size had the greatest influence on impact intensity. Rearing practices and fish feed were the greatest contributors to the impacts studied due to the production of fish meal and oil and the low efficiency of feed use, which generated large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. It is necessary to optimise the diet formulation and to follow better feeding strategies to lower the FCR and improve farm performance. Water column depth greatly influenced the farms’ environmental performance due to the increase in waste dispersion at deeper depths, while shallow depths resulted in accumulation of organic matter and degradation of water quality. Cage size influences environmental performances of aquaculture farms. Thus, from an environmental viewpoint, decision makers should grant licences for farms in deeper water with larger cages and encourage them to improve their FCRs. This study is the first attempt to combine the HCPC method and the LCA framework to study the environmental performance of aquacultural activity. The typology developed captures the variability among farms because it considers several farm characteristics in the classification. The LCA demonstrated that technical parameters in need of improvement are related to the technical expertise of farm managers and workers and to the location of the farm.

Challenges Towards Establishing Germline Gene Therapy for Inherited Mitochondrial Diseases

Abstract: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation is associated with serious human disorders and affects multiple organs and tissues with high-energy requirements. Since the transmission of mtDNA is complex and is not fully understood, an accurate estimation of mtDNA disease transmission by preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) or by prenatal diagnosis (PND) remains challenging. Recently, nuclear transfer techniques, including maternal spindle transfer (MST), pronuclear transfer (PNT) and polar body transfer (PBT), have shown the promising results. These methods avoid the transmission of mutated mtDNA from mother to offspring, and are collectively known as the mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT). Further, the United Kingdom Parliament approved the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to grant licenses for experimental use of MST and PNT in humans in 2015. Thus, a new era of assisted reproductive technology (ART), in which cures can be provided at the gamete or early zygote stages, is reali...

Pheasant poults – buzzard prey or gamebirds?

Applications for licences to kill buzzards in order to prevent serious damage to the viability of pheasant shoots were regarded by Natural England, the licensing authority, as sufficiently novel to require direction from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the government department responsible for the licensing provisions in the Wildlife & Countryside Act and their implementation in accordance with the EU Birds Directive. Defra declined to issue a specific policy for raptors and instructed Natural England to apply the general policy. The court found that Natural England had not done this but had, in effect, applied a hidden policy to refuse such applications. Natural England’s decision to refuse to grant licences was quashed on the grounds of reliance on an undisclosed policy, taking account unlawfully of public opinion, unreasonableness and failing to deal with the option of licensing live trapping of birds. Ouseley J also found that the case was covered by the Aarhus Convention because it related to an environmental matter. The fact that the case was about a refusal to grant a licence and therefore amounted to a challenge seeking to cause harm was irrelevant.

Injunctions on Standard Essential Patents: in Search of a 'Clear Bright Line'

If an intellectual property (IP) infringer has the ‘aptitude’ to agree on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licence and pay royalties, the holder of a standard-essential patent (SEP) must take certain steps before seeking an injunction, Advocate General (AG) Melchior Wathelet advised the Court of Justice in November 2014. Unless the SEP holder can prove that an IP infringer was aware of the existence of the patent, they should warn the infringer in writing—identifying the infringement and the relevant SEP—as well as make an offer to license on FRAND terms, before going to a court for injunction, Wathelet said. The infringer on their part must respond with a counter-offer in a ‘serious and diligent manner’—the SEP holder would be entitled to seek an injunction if the infringer acts ‘purely tactically and dilatory’. The Advocate General distinguished the Huawei/ZTE dispute from Orange-Book-Standard case emphasising that the latter concerned de facto standard and there was no obligation for the SEP holder to grant licences on FRAND terms. ‘Even though I consider that mere vague and non-binding willingness of the infringer to negotiate cannot limit the right of the SEP holder to exercise an injunction’, the Advocate General said, applying either one or the other position would lead to an excess or a defect in the protection of SEP holders, of the users of the patents technique, or of consumers, he concluded. An SEP holder seeking injunctions by can be abusive if the infringer has been ‘objectively willing and able to acquire the licence’, added the Advocate General. These questions had earlier been investigated by the Commission in several cases, two of which were decided on 29 April 2014.

Facilitating Negotiation for Licensing Standard Essential Patents in the Shadow of Injunctive Relief Possibilities

Apple and Samsung, two of the world’s premier technology companies, have recently been involved in heated legal disputes over certain patents and related technologies. Lawsuits were filed in many jurisdictions around the world. In Korea, Samsung filed a lawsuit against Apple, and one of the issues raised was whether an injunctive relief can be granted when a holder of standard essential patents committed to license its patents under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms. The answer to this question will have significant ramifications, beyond determining the result of the ongoing lawsuit, and will have a serious impact on the processes and applicable rules employed at many standard-setting organizations. This article reviews the court decision in Korea, with a particular focus on the justifiability of granting an injunction to a holder of standard essential patents who committed to grant licenses under FRAND terms. In reviewing the court decision, the article will consider the negotiating parties’ bargaining behavior and related transaction costs, when an injunctive court relief is sought by a party. This article then proposes a new court procedure, which would ameliorate the parties’ incentives to engage in hold-up or reverse hold-up and would instead prompt and facilitate the parties’ negotiation. Under the proposed court procedure, the court would initially make an interim and provisionary decision on FRAND and would make a final and definitive decision on FRAND only at a later stage when doing so becomes necessary. This procedure would exert pressures on the parties to engage in negotiation in earnest and in good faith, without necessarily relying on the court’s direct involvement.

Australian experience with herbicide tolerant (HT) and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton

Australia’s nationally consistent framework for gene technology regulation is underpinned by the Gene Technology Act 2000, administered by an independent decision-maker, the Gene Technology Regulator. The object of the Act is “to protect the health and safety of people, and to protect the environment, by identifying risks posed by or as a result of gene technology, and by managing those risks through regulating certain dealings with genetically modified organisms”. Marketing and trade impacts are outside the scope of assessments required by the Act. Since 2001, seven licences have been issued for the commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) cotton with insect resistance and/or herbicide tolerance. Licences have also been issued for 32 GM cotton field trials with a broader range of traits. The decisions to grant licences for the environmental release of GM cottons require the preparation of Risk Assessment and Risk Management Plans (RARMPs) which apply the Regulator’s Risk Analysis Framework, based on internationally recognised standards and incorporating risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. In addition, licences for commercial release carry provisions for targeted surveillance if specific factors are identified in the risk assessment. More than 90 % of the Australian cotton crop is now planted with GM cotton varieties. No adverse effects to the health of people or the environment have been reported to date and no conditions for specific surveillance invoked. Information on the Australian regulatory system for gene technology, the Risk Analysis Framework, RARMPs and licences, is publicly available on the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator website at www.ogtr.gov.au .

Compulsory Licenses: A Tool to Improve Global Access to the HPV Vaccine?

Cervical cancer disproportionately affects women in lower- and middle-income countries. But the new vaccines developed to prevent infection with some strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause cervical cancer are priced beyond the reach of most women and health agencies in these regions, due in part to the monopoly pricing power of brand-name companies that hold the patents on the vaccines. Compulsory licenses, which authorize generic competition with patented products, could expand access to HPV vaccines under certain circumstances. If high-quality biogeneric HPV vaccines can be produced at low cost and be broadly and efficiently registered, and if Merck and GSK are unwilling to grant licenses on a voluntary basis, compulsory licensing could play a pivotal role in ensuring vaccinations against HPVare available to all, around the world, regardless of ability to pay.

Early Commitments Help Patent Pool Formation

This paper explores in what circumstances patent owners can be expected to join unilaterally a patent pool. We develop a simple model in which owners of patents reading on a standard grant licences to competing manufacturers. Manufacturers must sink a fixed cost to enter the market for standard compliant products, and are thus exposed to hold up when royalties are set after their entry. We show that the formation of non-cooperative patent pools nearly always fails if it takes place once manufacturers have incurred fixed costs - as is usually the case. By contrast, allowing the formation of patent pools ex ante facilitates the emergence of stable non-cooperative patent pools. Such ex ante pools yield lower prices and higher licensing profits than ex post patent pools would. We discuss the policy implications of these results concerning the credibility of licensing commitments required by standard setting bodies.

Pharmaceuticals: An Outbreak of New Sources of Avian Flu Drug

Worldwide, 228 people have been infected with H5N1 avian influenza, largely through exposure to sick birds; of these, more than half have died. Although only limited human-to-human transmission has been confirmed, scientists fear a worldwide pandemic could erupt if the virus mutates to a highly pathogenic form that humans can efficiently pass among themselve. Now scientists are finding faster, cheaper ways to produce more of the only drug proven capable of combating avian flu. Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) reduces flu mortality by inhibiting the virus from spreading among cells. For several years Roche Pharmaceuticals has made the drug with shikimic acid from the pod of the star anise tree, a native of Asia. Extracting the acid is slow and expensive, but productive enough to meet the demand for regular seasonal flu. Recent “shortages” occurred when countries started stockpiling the drug in anticipation of a potential pandemic. In the 17 May 2006 Journal of the American Chemical Society, two separate teams describe new methods for synthesizing oseltamivir phosphate without using shikimic acid. “We came up with a very efficient route,” says Harvard University chemist Elias Corey of his petrochemical-based method. “The yield is twice as much as with the present process.” In the other new method, Masakatsu Shibasaki and colleagues at the University of Tokyo use 1,4-cyclohexadiene, a benzene derivative, as a catalyst. Other researchers are taking another tack: finding new sources of shikimic acid. Chemistry professor Thomas Poon of Claremont McKenna College has extracted the acid from the seeds of sweetgum trees, while Canada-based Biolyse Pharma found a source in the needles of discarded pine, fir, and spruce Christmas trees. Neither of these methods has been published. Roche has significantly expanded its Tamiflu production capacity over the past several years, and will be able to produce up to 400 million treatment courses annually by the end of 2006—a more than 10-fold increase over 2004 capacity. Production is getting a boost in part as Roche replaces most of the star anise extraction with Escherichia coli fermentation. The bacteria produce shikimic acid quickly and cheaply from glucose. Roche and its partners plan to substantially increase their fermentation capacities over the coming years. Roche spokesman Terence Hurley wouldn’t say whether the company anticipates adopting any other new methods. He did point out that a new process would require approval of the FDA and its foreign counterparts. If Roche doesn’t use his technique, Corey hopes another manufacturer does. This could happen despite Roche’s patent rights—if it ever does come down to a human pandemic, the 2001 Doha Declaration of the World Trade Organization states that countries facing a public health crisis may grant licenses for production of patented drugs.

Analysis of the Principles Applicable to the Review of Exclusive Broadcasting Licences Under EC Competition Law

This article discusses the Commission's review of exclusive broadcasting licences under EC competition law. It concludes that the Commission's practice suffers from a number of inconsistencies both as concerns market definition and substantive analysis. The authors submit that exclusive licensing is a legitimate and recognised practice for the commercial exploitation of broadcasting rights. There should therefore be a presumption in favour of the validity of such licences. Market definition and substantive analysis should be consistent with the competitive issue under examination. If the competitive issue is foreclosure, then competition authorities need to acknowledge the existence of alternative content that serves the needs of competing broadcasters equally well, regardless of the existence of dedicated viewer groups. A particular content's share of the relevant content market should serve primarily as a filter to eliminate licences involving low market shares from further scrutiny. Such licences a priori cannot raise competition issues, irrespective of their duration or scope. High market shares, on the other hand, do not automatically translate into an appreciable restriction of competition. Even in the case of high market shares, right-holders retain the right to grant licences on an exclusive basis. However, in such cases the duration and scope of the licence may need to be assessed in more detail, taking into account the full economic and legal context of the licence. An obligation for right-holders to license their content or to grant licences on a non-exclusive basis can only be contemplated in exceptional cases. Refusal to license, as such, even by a dominant undertaking cannot warrant such an obligation. The assessment of licences for new media rights should follow the same principles as the assessment of licences for traditional broadcasting rights. EC competition law should not be used as an instrument to make media policy. Competition law is platform neutral and does not provide a legal basis to favour or promote certain media platforms over other platforms. Indeed, using competition law as a media policy instrument would distort free competition and create serious legal uncertainties.

Assessing the impact of groundwater abstractions on river flows

Abstract Groundwater abstractions affect the water balance in catchments of rivers in hydraulic continuity with groundwater and may lead to reductions in river baseflow. The Environment Agency issues licences for groundwater abstractions and takes into account the risk of such adverse impacts when deciding whether to grant licences and what conditions to associate with each licence. Assessing the impact of a particular licence is a difficult task, but analytical solutions to idealizations of the complex river-aquifer interaction can help guide such judgements. This paper presents a brief review of available analytical solutions and discusses their applicability to real groundwater systems. The most useful analytical solutions (developed by Theis, Hantush and Stang) have been incorporated into a spreadsheet and a new methodology has been made available to support Environment Agency hydrogeologists working in abstraction licensing. This offers a consistent approach to making an initial evaluation of the impact of groundwater abstraction on river flow that may be applied across the diverse hydrogeological systems found throughout the Environment Agency Regions of England and Wales. The use of analytical solutions in this methodology inevitably represents a significant simplification of what is generally a very complex issue, and the limitations of the new methodology are emphasized.

A review of quality of life in Alzheimer's disease. Part 2: Issues in assessing drug effects.

There are numerous methods available for assessing patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or other forms of dementia. Quality-of-life (QOL) assessment is unique among these methods. The subjective nature of quality of life provides healthcare professionals with the opportunity of incorporating the value systems of patients and their carers into their assessments. A systematic review was carried out to assess the published data (and some unpublished data) on QOL assessment tools and instruments that claim to measure quality of life in dementia. A number of measures or methods used in the literature for assessing the quality of life of patients with dementing illnesses were identified. It was decided to present the resultant review in 2 parts that correspond to the 2 main groups into which the instruments were categorised. The first (part 1), looked at measures used to assess the impact of disease as well as instruments at a developmental or testing stage. The second (part 2), includes instruments that claim to measure quality of life in studies documenting the impact of a drug in this therapeutic area. This second group consists mainly of instruments identified as being used to assess quality of life during clinical trials in dementia/AD. As in part 1, this part of the review was unable to identify any validated methods of assessing the quality of life of both patients with dementia and their carers at the same time. The ideal instrument must show that it can reliably, reproducibly and comprehensively assess quality of life for both patients with dementia and their carers. It should also demonstrate that it can measure quality of life effectively using a practical administration technique that does not place any unnecessary burden on either informal carers, other healthcare workers involved or the patient themselves. In addition, any measure intended for use in assessing the impact of drug treatment on quality of life must demonstrate sensitivity to change, also known as responsiveness. All these criteria are even more important when measuring quality of life as an outcome during clinical trials of a new antidementia drug, because the data generated are likely to influence decisions made by regulatory bodies about whether to grant licences that are required by pharmaceutical companies to market their products. Further cross-sectional and longitudinal research is required to ensure that the available instruments possess the essential psychometric criteria that must be demonstrated prior to their utilisation in clinical trials of any compound developed for use in dementia/AD. Ongoing conceptual research may still be useful in exploring new ways of assessing quality of life in this important therapeutic area.

Regulatory control of the German radioactive waste management system

In Germany, all radioactive materials are controlled from their origin to their final disposal or release. This is in accordance with the IAEA draft Convention on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. A Waste Control System has been developed and is now available. Although the IAEA and EU regulations allow disposal outside the country of origin this philosophy is not in compliance with the present German disposal concept. As a consequence, Germany will not grant licences for the import of radioactive waste for final disposal or for export for disposal in a foreign country. Thus, unconditional clearance is a prerequisite if the final destination is outside Germany. However, Germany will closely follow all international developments in the field of radioactive waste disposal.

Computer Programs and Copyright: More Exceptions to Infringement

The Modern Law ReviewVolume 56, Issue 4 p. 591-599 Free Access Computer Programs and Copyright: More Exceptions to Infringement David I. Bainbridge, David I. Bainbridge Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham.Search for more papers by this author David I. Bainbridge, David I. Bainbridge Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham.Search for more papers by this author First published: July 1993 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1993.tb01891.xCitations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume56, Issue4July 1993Pages 591-599 RelatedInformation

Petroleum Industry Development In Alberta, Canada - The Relationship Between Governments And The Private Sector

Abstract Canada is a federation of ten provinces and two territories. The provinces own and manage their petroleum resources. The location of these resources differs considerably from the markets in which they are consumed. Sustaining the petroleum industry in Alberta necessitates a close working relationship between the federal and provincial levels of government, both of which have taxation-related powers, and a large, complex private sector comprising integrated and nonintegrated explorers, producers, marketers and contractors. This relationship recognizes the competitive nature of the petroleum industry and the priorities of the various governments within which the industry must operate. Fluctuations in international petroleum price, supply and demand cause priorities between governments, between industry and government, and within industry itself, to shift dramatically. Key policy areas for any jurisdiction wishing to sustain a petroleum industry include over-all political and business stability, taxation, repatriation of capital, local participation, exploration access, acquisition, retention and return of petroleum rights, worksite safety, environmental protection, information disclosure, resource revenue and conservation, upgrading, transporting, domestic and export marketing and end-product pricing. Frequent consultation with industry associations is critical to maintaining an effective policy balance. The Canadian Constitutional Framework Canada is a self-governing federation within the British Commonwealth comprising ten provinces and two territories. Each province owns the petroleum and mineral rights to its lands, except where they have either been retained by the federal government, are owned by Indian bands pursuant to treaties, or were granted historically to trading companies, railways and early settlers. In Alberta, 81% of the petroleum and other mineral rights are owned by the province in the name of the Crown and are administered by the Alberta Department of Energy. The province leases these mineral rights to industry for development and takes a share of production as royalties. The revenues from leases, as bonuses, rentals and royalties, are a major source of income for the province. Alberta also has taxation powers, including taxing the production of those minerals which are not owned by the Crown, taxing fuels at their point of end use, and taxing other goods and services. For purposes such as petroleum industry drilling, production and resource conservation, provincial control extends hroughout the province. The federal government has wide-ranging powers regarding interprovincial and international trade, as well as corporate and personal income taxation (the revenues from which are shared with the provinces). Responsibility for energy regulation is shared among the federal and provincial governments and several major agencies. The National Energy Board regulates the construction of interprovincial and international pipelines and power lines, establishing minimum construction and operating standards and ensuring (in cooperation with the provinces) minimal environmental impact. It has the power to expropriate land for these purposes. It also forecasts national energy supply and demand and is empowered to grant licences for the export of energy considered to be surplus to "reasonably foreseeable" needs. The Board interacts with industry primarily through public hearings. Its Alberta counterpart is the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board. the responsibilities of which are described later.