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The purpose of this paper is to review the use and application of shell entities, as they facilitate crime and terrorism, impede investigations and harm societies.

The study details the types and characteristics of shell entities, reviews actual cases to exhibit how shells are abused, outlines reasons shells disguise beneficial ownership and analyzes steps taken by countries and organizations to thwart the abuse of shell entities.

Many types of shell entities are used by white-collar criminals and are often layered in an intricate network which conceals the identity of beneficial owners. Nominees and bearer shares are used in tandem with shell entities to optimize concealment. Accountants, lawyers and trust and company service providers facilitate and promote the use and abuse of shell entities by lawbreakers. The G-8, Financial Action Task Force and G-20 have begun steps to improve ownership transparency, but the effort is moving at a modest pace.

The analysis makes clear the reasons for and means by which the wealthy and powerful, along with criminals, conceal trillions of dollars of income and wealth that remain untaxed and may be used for nefarious purposes. The paper is limited by the paucity of data on concealed assets and their beneficial owners.

The findings clearly show the need for more concerted action by national governments, organizations, the United Nations and law enforcement and to improve ownership transparency and information exchange regarding shell entities.

The findings demonstrate that shell entities used to conceal wealth prevent untold trillions in taxes from being collected by governments worldwide. This lack of revenue facilitates income inequality and skews national economic and fiscal policies. Also, more white-collar criminals and terrorist financiers could be brought to justice if ownership transparency is improved.

This study adds to the limited literature on shell entities, their characteristics and uses and abuses.

This study examines the legal codification of nascent markets, specifically, the process of defining and incorporating Islamic banking and organic agriculture within the legal system in Turkey. I find that actors’ priorities differ significantly with respect to formal codification and that the existing legal order and socio-political and economic contexts shape how state and non-state actors influence legislative and regulative action. This study contributes to our understanding of how actors and their ideological commitments and relational concerns affect the legal formulation of new industries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine academic literature and business regulation for company formation in Estonia in relation to small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). It is an example of a country which is a new member of the expanded European Union (EU) and its regulation.

This exploratory paper makes use of World Bank Surveys, primary business law sources together with an interview from a business within the country assessed giving a grass‐roots perspective.

The investigation reaffirms the importance of SMEs within transitional economies from a Soviet background such as Estonia because of the Socialist black hole. It also emphasizes the correlation between SME development and business law and the significance and key aspects of company formation for an SME. Furthermore, transition economies like Estonia have complied with EU directives for company formation and advanced within the regulation process quickly. However, it is still more difficult for a person or entity from another EU Member State to form a company in Estonia.

This research demonstrates that compliance on EU regulation for company formation by a new EU member has been provided for within the regulation of the wording. It also indicates that for an entity from another EU state (other than Estonia) it is slightly more difficult to form a company. Unofficial costs, a legacy from the Soviet period are almost non‐existent within the Estonian company registration system. Some of the gaps within the World Bank Surveys are filled by the interview, although further evaluation is needed from other academics.

The research highlights the importance of company formation for SMEs, the compliance of a new EU Member State with EU directives, and the reality of company formation regulation for an SME in Estonia.

The purpose of the research is to generalize the most perspective ideas of modern researchers and to form the authors’ position on the problem of the notion of legal conflict from the point of view of its application in the practice of legal conflicts management. The methodology of the research consists of structural and functional approach that allows studying legal conflict as a complex system, each element of which performed a certain function. During formulation of the notion “legal conflict,” the formal and logical method of dieresis is used, which allows differentiating legal conflicts from other social conflicts and differentiating the notion from adjacent categories. The authors study the main directions of legal conflict in the modern science. Tendencies of development of ideas of legal conflict are determined. Conclusion on the necessity for formation of “flexible” definitions of the notion “legal conflict,” oriented at their application in the practice of conflict management, is substantiated. Criticism is applied toward the researchers that try to use the methods of conflict research for analysis of purely legal phenomena (legal collisions, gaps, arguments on competence, etc.). Definition of legal conflict is formed and it is shown how it is possible to build a system of diagnostics of legal conflict on its basis. It is concluded that definition of legal conflict always sets main directions of study of the phenomenon, due to which there are different definitions of the corresponding notion, depending on researcher’s orientation at studying the conflict or means of its solution. The key sign of legal conflict is the possibility of its regulation with legal means, which is realized by the conflict participants. It is necessary to view conflict as a space of opportunities – for participants and for legal bodies. It is necessary to form and develop a system of diagnostics of legal conflicts.

The purpose of this study is to examine the choices social enterprises in the USA have about the legal formation of their business. Recently, new legal forms have been developed in the USA to ensure social goals are legally embedded into the firm. While the development of these new alternative supports social missions, organizations should be aware of both the benefits and drawbacks, which are outlined in this paper. Additionally, we draw on the US Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case to illustrate how social enterprises can embed their social mission into their legal foundation using traditional legal structures, accomplishing the same purpose as the new socially oriented alternatives.

The authors provide a detailed assessment of the social-oriented legal forms of business based on precedent set in the US Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case.

Based on precedent in the Hobby Lobby case, the authors’ view is that traditional US legal business structures can be as effective as alternative socially oriented legal forms in the US as a method to legally prevent mission drift by legally embedding social goals into the legal structure of the firm.

By highlighting how social enterprises can use traditional US legal business forms to ensure their social mission as part of the organizational goals, the authors provide another legal avenue, and so US-based social enterprises can continue to focus on addressing social issues without worrying about mission drift from legal pressures.

There is quite a lot of hype surrounding the development and adoption of socially oriented legal business forms in the USA with little discussion about the actual need for these new forms. The alternative perspective by the authors informs social enterprises how they can operate within the traditional US legal system while still focusing on their social mission.

The authors are one of the first to argue, based on precedent in the Hobby Lobby case, that US social enterprises need to critically examine which type of legal form is right for their business and what will offer them most benefit to their social mission in the long run.

This research is very important to conduct to review government policy on Indonesian contract law that still uses contract law inherited from Dutch product (BW) and review which regulations are to be adapted to current development of contract law. This research’s novelty is that new rules will be found in Indonesian contract law.

This research used normative and empirical methods. Normative research is dogmatic research or one that analyzes legislation using secondary data consisting of primary, secondary and tertiary legal materials. Besides the normative method, the research was also conducted using empirical method through direct interview and observation in some government agencies, such as the Directorate General of Legislation, Ministry of Law and Human Rights (HAM) and Chairman of Legal Product Formation Division, House of People’s Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia and the Civil Law Teaching Association (APHK).

This research found that new Indonesian contract law is very important to give legal certainty and justice to the people, and the contract law must regulate important matters related to the sources of contract besides agreement and law, related to termination, unjust enrichment, negotiation, good faith, public contract and private contract and related to legal act and validity of electronic contract.

The novelty of this research is that new rules will be found in Indonesian contract law. This research is different from previous researches conducted by Sigit Irianto (2013) and Deviana Yuanitasari (2020), that discuss only on contract law development related only to the good faith principle.

Drafting contract law is a relatively heavy duty due to the factor of law pluralism that contains contract aspect in Indonesia such as customary law aspect, Islamic law aspect, regional aspect, international aspect and other aspects. In fact, meanwhile, there is rapid development in the community with regard to business transactions that are also followed with contract law development. Therefore, amendment is needed for the Indonesian contract law to adapt to the people’s need for law, and this change agenda is also addressed to updating the contract law.

Civil law reform, especially contract law, is deemed very important for Indonesia, because based on field fact, people do their business contract by applying contract law that is not yet regulated in the contract law in KUHPerdata; thus, new contract law is needed that regulates important matters related to sources other than agreement and law.

It is very important to conduct this research to review government policy in Indonesian contract law that still uses the contract law inherited from Dutch product (BW) and review what regulations should have been adjusted to current development of contract law. The novelty of this research is that new rules will be found in Indonesian contract law. This research is different from previous researches conducted by Sigit Irianto (2013) and Deviana Yuanitasari (2020), that discuss only on contract law development related only to the good faith principle.

The purpose of this chapter is to study perspectives of formation of the optimization model of a well-balanced information economy in modern Russia.

The research methodology includes the complex SWOT analysis of the environment, wherein the optimization model of a well-balanced information economy in modern Russia is implemented; this analysis allows determining threats and possibilities for its formation. Also, the method of formalization is used that allows tablulation of results.

The authors show a number of prerquisites for the formation of a well-balanced information economy in Russia, as well as multiple internal barriers on the path of its development. One of the barriers is deficit of resources. Also, there exist large perspectives of formation of the optimization model of a well-balanced information economy. These perspectives include improvement of legal conditions of financing of development of digital economy, intensive development of the ICT spheres and online business, growth of innovational activity and efficiency in the information sphere, and creation and stimulation of implementing the possibilities for feedback in the course of information economy’s formation. Based on the analyzed tendencies, it is concluded that these perspectives will allow overcoming the major barriers on the path of implementation of the strategy of building the optimization model of a well-balanced information economy in modern Russia, related to deficit of resources, structural imbalance of the noosphere, low efficiency of information, and linear direction of the process of management of information economy.

The authors determine that successful practical implementation of this strategy is largely predetermined by the capability of state regulators for a highly effective management of internal and external factors. It is recommended to pay attention to the management of these factors in the process of practical implementation of the strategy of forming the optimization model of a well-balanced information economy in modern Russia.

Reflecting on the myriad instances where juridical recognition demands a story, confession, testimony on suffering, or evidence of trauma – this chapter considers the role of storytelling and narrative in constituting the legal person, their persona, and relationship they have to a community or the state. What are the forces that drive the demand to give an account of oneself? What are the reasons for, and implications of, resisting the injunction to reveal all? Going beyond the usual bounds of juridically recognised testimony and evidence – the author considers how memory moves across time and space in human and non-human material formations. These questions are posed to open discussion of a wider concern about the autonomy and heteronomy of law. Looking beyond the separation of law and morality in positivist jurisprudence – the autonomy/heteronomy distinction is a means of getting at the co-constitution of the human and non-human. The discussion thus ranges across the philosophies of history that constitute autonomy/heteronomy – examining the tension between confidential stories of those who have suffered abuse, and the state’s archival drive to preserve such material; literary and metaphorical devices for narrating the past; and a consideration of nature and destruction where the human plays an infinitesimal part in making history.

After the precipitated decline of the Soviet Empire and its satellite states, a system change seemed to be called for, and many countries embarked on social and political reforms focussing on property structures in the economy. This raised the issue of governance in the institutions that would constitute the structures in which production would have to take place. In particular, some Central European countries opted for mass privatisations of the means of production, on the face of it so as to have the people participate in the wealth of the nation. In fact, the wealth of the nation depends on the structures in which it is constituted. Dissipation of property rights will reduce the value of the nation's productive capital, whereas an intelligent structure that creates good governance structures at the same time, increases the value of the producing capital. This relatively simple insight lies at the heart of our understanding of how to analyse different processes of mass privatisation. This essay develops a theoretical framework by which different governance structures can be analysed. The framework consists of a blend of the economic theory of property rights, new institutional economics and Austrian economic theory.