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This chapter provides an overview of local government auditing in Brazil. The mandate of regional Courts of Accounts, which are public audit organisations, includes overseeing states and municipalities’ legal compliance and public policy performance, while the federal Supreme Audit Institution scrutinises fiscal transfers from the central to local governments. Each of the 32 regional Courts of Accounts is autonomous. However, all follow the Napoleonic audit model and are internally organised in three main functions: auditing (comprising investigation, fair hearing and adversarial phase, and accusation), prosecuting (comprising legal compliance analysis), and judgmental. Despite the comprehensive legal mandate and recent digitalisation efforts, Courts still focus on compliance audit. Due to their autonomy, the Courts lack central coordination, standardised audit techniques, and uniform procedural rules. Moreover, the Courts’ lack of independence and transparency may impair their capacity to promote democratic accountability.

States have intervened with legislation to improve cashflow within construction project supply chains. The operation of the UK’s Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 leads to payment obligations stated either as a contract administrator’s certificate (or equivalent) or an adjudicator’s decision. The purpose of the intervention would be defeated unless there are speedy ways of transforming these pieces of paper into real money. The combination of the legislation, contractual provisions and insolvency law has produced a minefield of complexity concerning enforcement of payment obligations stated in these documents. Unfortunately, the knowledge and understanding required to navigate these complexities have been sorely lacking. The purpose of this paper is to plug this gap.

Legal research methods and case study approaches, using relevant court decisions as data, were adopted.

The enforcement method advised by the court is the summary judgment procedure provided under the Civil Procedure Rules. An overdue payment obligation, either under the terms of a construction contract or an adjudicator’s decision, amounts to a debt that can be the subject of insolvency proceedings. Although the insolvency enforcement method has been successfully used on some occasions, using it purely as a debt collection weapon would be inappropriate and likely to be punished by the court.

The paper contributes to knowledge in two ways: (i) it maps out the factual situations in which these payment challenges arise in language accessible to the construction industry’s professions; and (ii) comparative analysis of payment enforcement methods to aid decision-making by parties to construction industry contracts. It is relevant to the other common-law jurisdictions in which similar statutory interventions have been made.

European justice systems are facing a dramatic performance crisis due to the frequent inability to resolve cases without incurring unreasonable delays and backlogs. In this framework, the Italian Judicial system places itself well below the European countries average, in terms of speed of resolution of administrative, civil and criminal trials. The purpose of the paper was to (1) identify factors affecting Italian judicial system efficiency and (2) identify potential actions to manage them, improving judicial system efficiency.

In order to achieve the aims of this paper, a systematic review to map all critical factors discussed in previous studies was performed. Studies were extracted from Google Scholar, Web of Science and SSRN databases. In total, 22 studies were included.

The identified factors of inefficiency of the Italian judicial system have been divided into three macro-classes depending on whether they concern human resource management, the judicial process or whether they pertain to internal or external outside the judicial organization. For each of these, possible strategies have been developed in a new conceptual framework.

The framework seeks to assist policymakers in forming policy measures that can significantly increase court effectiveness. This is the first attempt to review and map all factors affecting judicial system efficiency systematically, providing a new conceptual framework to manage them.

June 16,1972 Industrial relations — National Industrial Relations Court — Contempt — Committal for — Whether breach of court's order to be proved with same strictness as in High Court — Whether court may proceed against contemnor on own initiative — Official Solicitor — Powers and duties on behalf of alleged contemnor — Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (c. 72), Sch. 3, para. 27 (1) (a).

The purpose of this paper is to consider the procedures under section 17 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 (“The Act”) for enforcement proceedings to recover an awarded sum. This paper will demonstrate that the procedure is unclear and confusing to the party wall surveyors, the magistrates, the county court officers and the legal profession who express conflicting views on the appropriate method of enforcement. The intent of this paper is to examine and explain the procedures that will allow the recovery of costs and other contingencies, as a civil debt within the Magistrates’ Court, with a comparison of the more traditional route of the County Court.

The author has reviewed the relevant sections of the statutory acts and the limited publications that discuss and promote various methods of enforcement of actions that have been awarded and are recoverable summarily as a civil debt. Accordingly, the options to enforce payment within the magistrates’ and county courts will be considered, explained, and discussed within this paper.

This paper makes a contribution to the limited existing literature and theoretical interpretation of section 17 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, to provide a framework for considering the procedures and principles necessary to enforce payment of costs awarded under the Act. The paper makes a comparative analysis of the differences between the two recognised approaches and explains why a particular method (the Magistrates’ Court) will normally be the preferred option.

The paper demonstrates that there is confusion surrounding the appropriate method of enforcement, and provides a structured and detailed explanation of the appropriate method of enforcement.

Peter French has worked as a police officer and chief inspector for over 30 years. His experience in dealing with drug‐related crimes and a recent visit to the States has convinced him that the UK needs more, not less, criminal justice interventions. Drug Courts, he argues, increase treatment retention and offer greater flexibility to help people stay the course. Though they work for the US, with up to 75% success rates, will they work for the UK? Find out why Peter French thinks they will, with bells on.

The purpose of this paper is to show how fighting financial crime suffered a setback in Nigeria as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in an appeal case – Ude Jones Udeogu v FRN and Ors no SC. 622C/2019.

This paper is a critical analysis of the implication of Supreme Courts’ ruling in Ude Udeogu Jones, its implication to law enforcement’s effort in fighting financial crime and the way to get around the ruling. The paper adopts qualitative methods. It is conducted through the analysis of the ruling and the relevant laws.

Due to the ruling in UdeUdeogu Jones, Section 396(7) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 is no longer good law. Federal High Court judges elevated to the Court of Appeal no longer have special dispensation to conclude criminal cases they part heard. Furthermore, the ruling is a serious setback on the law enforcement’s efforts in fighting corruption. However, the drastic effect of the ruling can be mitigated by amending Section 396(7).

Because the ruling is very recent, analysis is based on the relevant enactments and case laws including recent decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

There is no comprehensive work on this ruling. Therefore, this paper adds value to knowledge as it makes clear the background of the appeal case, as well as the impact of the ruling of the Supreme Court on fighting financial crime in Nigeria and the way to get around the ruling.

This paper aims to summarize the work of the Court of Protection.

The paper outlines the history and range of applications within the jurisdiction of the Court, drawing from the Mental Capacity Act and the Code of Practice. Reference is made to annual reports of the work of the court which profile its workload. Finally there is a review of a line of case law dealing with the question of media attendance and reporting of cases before the court.

The Court in its current form was established under The Mental Capacity Act, 2005 and is a significant decision‐making body in the UK within adult safeguarding practice concerning adults whose decision‐making capacity is impaired. The implications of several specific cases are discussed.

This paper provides a unique insight into the work of the Court of Protection and the implications of recent decisions by the Court for adult safeguarding.

To analyze the U.S, Supreme Court’s decision in Liu v. S.E.C., 140 S. Ct. 1936 (2020) and its potential implications for insider trading cases.

Provides context on the history of disgorgement in SEC enforcement proceedings; discusses factual and procedural background underlying the Liu decision; summarizes the Court’s opinion and rationale, with a particular focus on the Court’s pronouncements regarding the permissible scope of SEC disgorgement as an equitable remedy; identifies and explores three possible issues in insider trading cases that may be affected by the Court’s narrowing of SEC disgorgement.

In Liu, the Supreme Court narrowed SEC disgorgement by stating that, as a general matter, SEC disgorgement is not permitted where: (1) the proceeds are not remitted to investors; (2) one defendant is made to disgorge profits that were received by someone else; or (3) the amount of disgorgement fails to deduct legitimate business expenses, in each case subject to possible exemptions as outlined by the Court.

This rule may call into question whether courts may: (a) order disgorgement against insider traders, given the difficulty of identifying investors who have been harmed; (b) order insider traders to disgorge profits earned by others on account of their violations; or (c) order insider traders to pay civil penalties under Section 21 A of the Exchange Act based on profits earned by others.

Expert analysis and guidance from experienced securities enforcement lawyers with expertise in insider trading.