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To review FINRA enforcement action taken against a broker-dealer over failure to waive mutual fund sales charges for certain eligible customers and failure to establish, maintain, and enforce a supervisory system and written procedures reasonably designed to ensure eligible accounts received sales charge waivers as set forth in the mutual funds’ prospectuses.

Reviews and summarizes FINRA’s finding’s regarding the broker-dealer’s failure to apply applicable mutual fund sales charge waivers, deficiencies in the broker-dealer’s supervisory system and written procedures resulting in the failure, resulting violations of FINRA rules, the broker-dealer’s remedial efforts, and the sanctions imposed.

This settlement provides an important reminder for FINRA member broker-dealers of the need to ensure that eligible investors receive applicable sales charger waivers or are placed in the appropriate share class, and to establish, maintain, and enforce a supervisory system and written procedures reasonably designed to ensure eligible accounts received sales charge waivers as set forth in the mutual funds’ prospectuses.

Practical explanation from experienced financial institutions lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to address the question of whether Malaysian public listed companies manage their earnings in response to changes in tax polices. The context of this study is the tax waiver year of 1999 which came about from the introduction of the Self Assessment System (SAS) by the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) in the year 2000. If companies are to minimize tax liabilities, then the tax waiver year of 1999 may provide a substantial incentive for these companies to manage earnings in 1999.

The modified Jones Model (adjusted) is used to obtain the discretionary current accruals which represent earnings management. It is hypothesized that there is a significant positive discretionary current accrual (income increasing earnings management) in the tax waiver year of 1999.

The results indicate that that there is a negative relationship between earnings management and the effect of the tax waiver year of 1999. These results suggest that the magnitude of discretionary current accrual is not related to the tax waiver year in a way that is consistent with tax‐motivated income shifting behavior. Instead companies tend to manipulate earnings downwards during severe economic downturn. This is in line with Healy's bonus maximization hypothesis.

The test sample is limited to public listed companies only and some companies are excluded due to insufficient data. Therefore, the results cannot be a representation of Malaysian companies' practices.

The findings of this paper contribute to the sparse literature on tax‐induced earnings management practices in Malaysia. The findings could be of value to the IRBM in designing and improving on the plans for future tax‐based incentive schemes.

The passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act has heightened awareness of the importance for companies to conduct internal investigations in appropriate circumstances when wrongdoing is suspected. When such an investigation is conducted, the challenges faced by the company may include whether to disclose voluntarily the results of the internal investigation to governmental agencies and regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Department of Justice, who are investigating the suspected wrongdoing and potentially threatening civil or criminal charges against the company. The decision as to whether to disclose such results is riddled with potential pitfalls, including the concern that disclosing information in this manner will waive the attorney‐client privilege or work product protection with respect to third parties, opening the door to a wave of potential lawsuits. This article discusses the doctrine of selective waiver, which allows a company to disclose privileged information to the government without waiving the privilege as to third parties. Some case law, including some recent district court opinions, supports the notion of selective waiver, at least in circumstances where the privileged information has been disclosed pursuant to an appropriately crafted confidentiality agreement. The majority view, however, is that once privileged information is disclosed to anyone, the privilege is lost and waiver therefore occurs with respect to all third parties, irrespective of whether a confidentiality agreement exists. Recognizing the conundrum posed by this unsettled area of law, the SEC recently has proposed

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of a particular low marginal-cost employee benefit on employees’ intended retention and performance. By utilizing a unique data set constructed by surveying full-time faculty and staff members at a public university in the USA, the authors study the impact of this employee benefit on faculty and staff performance and retention.

The authors focus on the impact of reduction in dependent college tuition at various levels on employees’ intentions to work harder and stay at their current job by using both OLS and ordered probit models. The authors also simulate the direct opportunity cost (reduction in revenue) in dollars and as a percent of total budgeted revenue to facilitate administrative decision making.

The results provide evidence that for institutions where employee retention and productivity are a priority, maximizing or offering dependent college tuition waiver may be a relatively low-cost benefit to increase retention and productivity. In addition, the amount of the tuition waiver, number of dependents and annual salary are statistically significant predictors of intended increased productivity and intent to stay employed at the current institution.

Employee retention and productivity is a challenge for all organizations. Although pay, benefits and organizational culture tend to be key indicators of job satisfaction, little attention is given to specific types of benefits. This study is the first comprehensive attempt to explore the relationship between the impact of this low-cost employee benefit and employee performance and retention in a higher education institution in the USA.

Purpose – In this chapter, we address the ambiguous nature of parental consent requirement decisions for the purpose of conducting minimal risk research of at-risk youth.

Methodology/approach – We evaluate current guidelines, which are used to determine the appropriateness of parental consent waivers, review related literature, and offer a case study to understand some of the resulting dilemmas that arise when seeking approval and researching youth in potentially abusive and neglectful situations.

Findings – We offer the researcher, practitioner, ethics committee, and policy maker new strategies to aid in the determination and application of parental consent waivers for minimal risk research participation among at-risk youth populations.

Several countries, such as South Africa and India, believe that intellectual property rights (IPRs), including patents, impede the efficient increase in vaccine production to inoculate the global population as they scramble to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Their proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive these pharmaceutical patents has been met with resistance from a few developed countries, who believe that the abrogation of IPRs is unnecessary, even during a pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of a potential waiver of medical patents at the WTO versus the status quo of IPR laws in the global economy.

This study examines key arguments from economic and moral standpoints regarding the provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and other related international agreements and their validity based on the premise of the internalisation of positive externalities posed by vaccines.

The effectiveness of the TRIPS agreement in securing medical access is weak on account of the ability of profit-making multinationals to secure IP rights and on account of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral agreement that supports patent evergreening and a period of protection on test data which challenges the access to medicines and the fundamental human right to health.

This study examines international IPRs through the lens of human rights and proposes a new system that balances the two.

This paper seeks to describe and assess recent legal developments that affect the corporate attorney‐client privilege.

Discusses and analyzes the corporate attorney‐client privilege and work product doctrine and the role of such protections in US society; discusses how recent developments including policies of the US Department of Justice and the evolving role of corporate auditors have adversely affected these protections, and shows how some of these developments can be ameliorated so as to preserve the important principles underlying the corporate attorney‐client privilege.

The upsurge of investigations into alleged corporate criminality has reignited the debate over the value of the privilege and the ability to have confidential communications between corporations and clients. Although judicial decisions do not favor adoption of a “selective waiver” doctrine, concerns have also been raised that legislative adoption of a selective waiver in this current culture‐of‐waiver environment may practically prevent companies from ever being able to assert a privilege again in governmental investigations.

A useful update on developments affecting the attorney‐client privilege and work product doctrine from a lawyer who specializes in securities litigation and governmental enforcement and is a member of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on the Attorney Client Privilege as well as Liaison from the Corporate Counsel Consortium to the American Bar Association Task Force on the Attorney Client Privilege.

This paper aims to identify the characteristics of 260 adults, 65 and over, who applied for services through an Area Agency on Aging in a western state in the United States, and to determine the conditions that resulted in referral to the state‐funded Home and Community Based Alternatives Program (Alternatives) or the Medicaid Aging Waiver (Waiver) program.

The study was an exploratory one utilizing quantitative data from an existing database of older adults who sought home and community based services from Mountainlands Area Agency on Aging (AAA) between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2007.

Although most of the sample lived at or near poverty levels, results suggest that higher monthly income and living alone predict referral to the Alternatives program, whereas greater need for assistance with bathing and performing heavy housework are the primary determinants of referral to the Medicaid Waiver program.

This study adds to the body of knowledge concerning the characteristics of people who access home and community based services. Most people in this study, who were seeking assistance from public programs, were living at or below the US Federal Poverty Line. One home and community based program was more likely to serve people who lived with others and had cognitive impairments, and referral to a Medicaid home and community based program was more likely for people who needed assistance with bathing and heavy housework.

Through this case, the students will be able: to study how developments in the external environment impact businesses, in general, and banking sector, in particular, banks/banking, environmental management, financing/borrowing, government, political business risk and politics; to identify the politico-legal constituents of the external environment which significantly influence businesses; and to analyse the pros and cons of loan-waivers as a policy decision on various stakeholders including banks, borrowers, governments as well as the larger society.

The case is symptomatic of the dilemmas faced by the Indian bank employees, in charge of loan-disbursals, torn between seemingly contradictory demands from their top management and the governments.

The case is meant to be used in the course on “Business Environment” both at the UG and PG levels. It can be used along with the module on “External Environment and its Constituents” to augment students’ understanding of the “Impact of Political Environment on Business.” The case can also enrich the class discussion on the PEST (politico-legal/economic/socio-cultural/technological) framework for analysing the forces in the external environment acting upon a business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 4: Environmental Management.

The purpose of this study is to contribute towards the debate about global access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

The global scramble for COVID-19 vaccine and other related pharmaceutical products have once again exposed the limitations of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). High-income countries are claiming a lion’s share of the first available batches of the COVID-19 vaccine in total disregard of the consequences such approach would have on the low-income countries that lack both the manufacturing wherewithal and the financial resources to purchase the vaccine and other products needed to combat the pandemic. This paper reviews the existing TRIPS Flexibilities and analyses their limitations with respect to equitable access of pharmaceutical products in times of health emergencies. This paper then considers the unique challenges that have been brought to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, this paper analytically explores some options that have been proposed so far that the World Trade Organization (WTO) or governments can take in the immediate to near term to facilitate equitable access to COVID-19 pharmaceutical products and technologies. This research is non-empirical, desk-based research. It is, therefore, based on the literature review of existing body of work that is relevant to the topic under discussion. Mindful of the epistemological challenges that are always associated with desk-based research, part of the methodology of this work is to seek support from related empirical studies based on different philosophical underpinnings but that confirm the working hypothesis of this research.

This paper finds that there is still a need for a comprehensive reform of TRIPS Agreement to streamline the voluntary licencing system which is an important tool for low-income countries’ access to affordable pharmaceuticals. However, for purposes of dealing with COVID-19, WTO members should consider establishing pooled Licencing Facilities and procurement strategies via already existing political, economic or regional trade groupings.

This research is original. All sources have been acknowledged. This research synthesises different research papers and applies different viewpoints to the debate on the impact of the TRIPS Agreement on equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.