Fraudulent Contracting of Work: Sham Companies (Austria, Estonia and Italy)

[Excerpt] Among the fraudulent contracting of work practices, one of the most difficult to identify is the creation of sham companies (usually, in another country). Sham companies are essentially new entities created to disguise the real employer. Creating a company, even abroad, is – of course – legal and may well be institutionally and economically advisable. However, when the only purpose of its creation is to benefit from more favourable regulations relating to labour and tax (and not to develop an activity in the country), then questions should be asked about the ‘genuine’ nature of the company. The Eurofound study Exploring the fraudulent contracting of work in the European Union emphasises that the term ‘sham contracting’ or ‘sham companies’ embraces a diversity of fraudulent practices, embedded in different institutional contexts (Eurofound, 2016a).1 Fraudulent practices are perpetrated for different purposes, the most important of which are to avoid paying, or to save, employment-related taxes and social security contributions, and to evade employers’ liability towards employees. Beyond some recent analysis of ‘letter-box’ companies,2 there is not much research into sham contracting or sham companies. In addition, EU legislation has not played any role in this respect. Sham companies share the common goal of disguising the real employer. This can be achieved through different mechanisms such as: the creation of companies without assets, generally within subcontracting chains commercial or civil law contracts between companies where employees are misrepresented as contractors or company owners workers’ cooperatives, where workers lack actual control over the organisation’s decisions

Asiatic cotton miRNAs identified by homolog search and secondary structure.

<p>ML: mature sequence length; Lc: the location of arm; PL: the length of pre-miRNAs.</p

The distribution of U content.

<p>The range is 17.65–57.69% with an average of 33.09±7.85%.</p

Statistics of the characterized parameters of Asiatic cotton miRNA precursors.

<p>Statistics of the characterized parameters of Asiatic cotton miRNA precursors.</p

The distribution of AU content.

<p>The range is 38.67–94.23% with an average of 62.95±11.78%.</p

Predicted stem-loop hairpin secondary structures of the selected Asiatic cotton miRNAs identified in this study.

<p>Mature miRNA sequences are in red color. The length of the accurate miRNA precursors may be slightly longer than what is presented here.</p

The length distribution of pre-miRNAs identified in Asiatic cotton.

<p>The range of length is 46–684 nt with an average of 138±120 nt.</p

Hydration of Nitriles to Amides by Thiolate-Bridged Diiron Complexes

A series of nitrile-coordinating complexes [Cp*Fe­(μ-SEt)­RCN]₂[PF₆]₂ (<b>1</b>, R = alkyl, aryl, vinyl, amine) have been obtained by the reaction of [Cp*Fe­(μ-SEt)­MeCN]₂[PF₆]₂ (<b>1a</b>) with various nitriles in acetone. Complexes <b>1</b> can realize the hydration of a nitrile ligand under ambient conditions. Complexes [Cp*Fe­(μ-SEt)₂(μ-η¹:η¹-NH­(O)­CR)­FeCp*]­[PF₆] (<b>2</b>) were successfully isolated as intermediates during the hydration process, with <b>2b</b> and <b>2e</b> (R = CH₂CH and Et₂N) being characterized by spectrometry and X-ray crystallography. Treatment of <b>2</b> with HBF₄·Et₂O in the presence of nitriles released corresponding amides <b>3</b>. At the same time, the structural features of the [Fe₂S₂] scaffold were retained. These results confirmed that the hydration of nitriles was realized by cooperative interaction on diiron centers

Highly Enantio- and Diastereoselective Vinylogous Aldol Reaction by LiCl-Assisted BINOL–Titanium Species

The first highly enantio- and diastereoselective vinylogous aldol reaction between propionyl acetate-derived Brassard’s diene and aldehydes was accomplished by titanium–lithium combined Lewis acid, affording δ-hydroxy-γ-methyl-β-methoxy acrylates. This methodology was utilized in convenient and concise construction of the polypropionate moiety in cystothiazole A and melithiazole C

Atmospheric Arsenic Deposition in the Pearl River Delta Region, South China: Influencing Factors and Speciation

This is a comprehensive study on mobilization/speciation and temporal/spatial variation of atmospheric arsenic (As) deposition in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. A set of experimental procedures was established for measuring the deposition fluxes of individual As species. The deposition carrying inorganic As^III % was significantly higher than that contained in atmospheric particles. Compared with dry deposition, wet deposition was much more harmful to the regional ecosystem, as it contributed the majority of bulk deposition (>75%) and carried most of the mobilized iAs^III compounds. A stepwise linear regression model was utilized to identify the factors influencing total As deposition (wet: precipitation and PM_2.5, dry: relative humidity, wind speed, and PM₁₀, bulk: precipitation, PM_2.5, and wind speed). By examining the representativeness of the study sites and comparison with the literature data, the statistic models were verified to explain the temporal/spatial variation of total As deposition in the entire PRD region, where significant seasonal variation was only found for wet deposition (wet season > dry season). The annual As load contributed from regional atmospheric deposition increased from 2013 to 2015, when the contributions of individual cities varied annually