Search results

This article aims to examine some of the implications of the UK Bribery Act (UKBA) 2010 for business in Africa and reviews the effectiveness of strategies African governments have adopted to prevent bribery. The author proposes the development of a bespoke anti-bribery management system (ABMS) based on empirical research. This would help African institutions overcome some of the challenges associated with enforcing regulatory measures formulated in developed countries.

The paper takes the form of a literature review and commentary.

The UKBA has extra-territorial jurisdiction which empowers UK courts to prosecute cases of bribery committed abroad by UK companies and their associates. The risk of prosecution is likely to affect foreign direct investment and official development aid flows to Africa. However, companies can escape prosecution if they can prove that they have adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery. This raises the question as to whether the legislation shifts the responsibility of fighting bribery to under-resourced overseas business partners and supply chains. While most African governments have adopted robust anti-bribery laws, their enforcement is hampered by weak institutions.

Empirical research is required to assess the impact of the legislation over the next five years.

African organisations must be sensitised about the consequences of violating the UKBA to ensure they adopt appropriate anti-bribery strategies.

This article contributes to literature by exploring the development of evidence based ABMS for African organisations which is currently lacking.

An ‘investor’ is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as ‘one who invests money’. However, this traditional definition does not include the other stakeholders in the modern corporation: persons such as employees, members of the pension fund, suppliers, the assured, depositors and the large numbers of people whose savings are invested by institutional investors.

To remind sponsors to adopt an attitude of “professional skepticism” in Hong Kong IPOs.

Explains the Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”)'s sanction on BOCOM International (Asia) Limited (“BIAL”) as a sign of determination to hold sponsors to account as gatekeepers to the Hong Kong capital markets.

The SFC has reprimanded and fined BIAL HK$15 million for failing to discharge its duties as a sole sponsor in a listing application for China Huinong Capital Group Company Limited (“China Huinong”), a company established in the PRC. This substantial fine reinforces the need for sponsors to ensure that they fully and properly discharge all of their duties, and that they will be held responsible for any failure to do so, even if the listing is not ultimately approved.

If sponsors fail to fulfil the requirements required under the sponsors’ regulatory regime, the SFC will be proactive and impose tough sanctions, even if the listing application is eventually withdrawn or returned by the SEHK.

Practical guidance from experienced regulatory, financial and commercial dispute resolution lawyers.

This paper aims to assess 12 audit procedures that deemed challenging to insurance audits.

This paper uses grounded theory as a framework for conducting series of semi-structured interviews with six technical audit partners, two from Big Four and four from non-Big Four. The interview agendas are drawn from the 12 audit approaches suggested by Practice Notes 20 (The Audit of Insurance in the United Kingdom) issued by the Auditing Practices Board (UK).

Without an audit standard, practitioners will exercise excessive professional judgments and deviate from audit approaches.

Though the findings are solely drawn from the insurance sector rather than a wide spectrum of sectors, they have huge ramifications to accounting and audit professions, stakeholders and regulators.

This paper reveals differences in audit approaches between the theoretical context and practical perspective.

The paper showed that impact of audit failure leads to litigation, financial losses and loss of faith in audit quality and approaches.

This paper suggests a hybrid approach on the grounded theory, provides an extensive overview of the sector’s audit approaches and issues and unravels an urgent need for a concerted international auditing standard.

Currently, owing to the influence of rapid globalisation, the issue of international and cross-cultural implementation of cross-cultural relationships is being widely discussed. This is also related to the readiness of graduates for international cooperation. The objective of this qualitative study is to identify and compare the requirements of company representatives from the Czech Republic – the Vysocina Region and Austria (Region Upper Austria) regarding the readiness of graduates to entering the workforce and the intercultural differences between the relevant regions.

A total of 20 Czech and Austrian companies from the relevant regions participated in the research. The results were obtained through in-depth guided interviews and a comparative method.

The qualitative study has theoretical implications in the context of new findings in the field of research. It contributes to the knowledge relating to the preparation of graduates for entering the workforce, and in the context of intercultural development, it extends this knowledge with the identified weaknesses of the mentioned preparation at the level of Czech or Austrian education.

The most effective and probable approach to enhance the development of cross-cultural competences in particular appears to be the integration of new techniques and content of education in the form of new subjects in cooperation with academics and practitioners from the particular country. Collaboration with these experts can build students' knowledge and skills from an intercultural environment to the highest degree possible.

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (the Act) establishes extensive investigative powers and disciplinary powers that may be exercised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in certain circumstances. The Act further empowers the FSA to take disciplinary action against approved persons, as well as authorised firms. This paper examines the circumstances in which senior managers may find themselves personally culpable for regulatory breaches and become the subject of disciplinary proceedings.

This paper seeks to report original research examining how effectively board members of occupational pension trusts administer pension plan assets on behalf of their respective members. The concept of the concerned lay board member (the “prudent person”) is increasingly under attack from the media, government and professional bodies. The proposition is that lay members should be replaced by professionals. Aims to explore the prudence vs professionalism theme through an examination of trustee profile, trustee financial competence and trustee performance effectiveness.

The study adopts demographic theory from the perspective that group demographics are a critical focus of analysis due to their potent impact on organisational outcomes. A qualitative approach was initially pursued in order to capture trustee views which formed the platform for the second quantitative phase of the study.

The study concludes that lay trustees display comparable capacity to professional trustees and emerge as equally able to positively respond to the future challenges facing pension boards.

The study highlights that HR practitioners can make a significant impact on the selection and development of pension board trustees.

Rather than continuing with the unhelpful, historically based distinction between lay and professional pension board trustees, this original study identifies the growing complexities of managing pension trusts, whilst emphasising the capabilities required to pursue innovative investment practice in the future. This paper is likely to be of value to researchers in the areas of board and pension trust performance, fund trustees, actuaries, trust fund managers, employee benefits consultancies, the Treasury and HR professionals.

The regulatory approach to insider trading (IT) in Australia is premised on a “blend” of fairness and efficiency which has generated an important controversy. The study aims to investigate this controversy by critically analysing the way the policy maker and judiciary have been striving to accomplish the regulatory goals based on this blend.

This research is based on existing primary and secondary legal resources.

Regulation of insider trading (IT) with an appropriate enforcement mechanism has become an important issue in Australia. As part of this, a range of legal studies have unveiled significant difficulties in successfully prosecuting insiders which largely reflect a serious disappointment with the operation of the IT law. Whilst the output of this research motivates and enhances a broad scholarly debate on the credibility of the current regime in combating IT and in generating a strong form of deterrent against prospective insiders, there has been a dearth of intellectual inquiries (to the best of the author's knowledge) backed up by a reliable assessment about the merits of the law, and especially about the issue of how the courts are applying a “blend” of the two policy rationales: market fairness and market efficiency in resolving particular circumstances. It is submitted that this paper will contribute to filling this gap in the legal literature and the wider academic deliberation on the quality and effectiveness of the IT regime.

This paper is the original work of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

The development of successful Sustainable Development Goals realization cannot be divorced from regulations governing sustainability information. Therefore, limited research on the regulatory environment regarding sustainability reporting in the Malaysian context requires further examination to ascertain the current framework. This study aims to critically assess the Malaysian Companies Act 2016 and Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) to examine the regulatory environment regarding the sustainability reporting framework. The examination is done to determine the extent of support provided under the Malaysian regulatory environment for the said practice.

A doctrinal methodology that relies on the extant literature, statutory instruments and case laws complemented by content analysis is adopted to explore the current regulatory environment regarding sustainability reporting.

The findings indicate that the Companies Act 2016 has already paved the way for the integration of corporate sustainability through the Business Review Report (BRR). However, the application is voluntary and hence could lead to inconsistent implementation. The MCCG has introduced the integrated reporting practice, but the application is limited to large companies on “apply and report” approach. This practice is voluntary to other types of companies, which diminishes the importance of sustainability reporting and gives rise to doubt about its efficiency in addressing sustainability in the long term. The current framework for sustainability reporting cannot be considered satisfactory, given the significance of sustainable development to the Malaysian economy and society, due to a lack of appropriate legal obligations.

This study is presently amongst the available legal literature on sustainability reporting practice in Malaysia, adding to its originality. This paper hopes to stimulate discussion among academicians on incorporating sustainability principles in the Companies Act 2016 and expanding directors’ duties.