Heedless Globalism: The SEC\u27s Roadmap to Accounting Convergence

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has introduced a Roadmap that describes a process leading to mandatory use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by domestic issuers by 2014. The SEC justifies this initiative on the grounds that global standardization yields cost savings and an ultimate gain in comparability, facilitating the search for global opportunities by u.s. investors and making u.s. capital markets more attractive to foreign issuers. This Article shows that the offered justification is inadequate. The SEC frames the matter as a choice between two institutional frameworks for standard setting, holding out high quality sets of standards, asking which choice reduces Fictions in global securities markets. Global market frictions are not the only stakes on the table. The two systems, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and IFRS, hold out materially different accounting treatment and the differences matter to domestic reporting companies and domestic users of financial statements. GAAP tends to constrain, where IFRS is flexible. GAAP\u27s constraints reflect normative choices, in particular preferences for conservatism, verifiability and transparent disclosure of current period results. It follows that the Roadmap poses a normative choice. What the SEC presents as an investor-driven initiative in fact abandons an investor-protective institutional arrangement of more than three decades\u27 duration and holds out costs for investors and incidental benefits for corporate managers and auditing .firms. This Article concludes the Roadmap should be withdrawn and the SEC should return to the point of departure-the ongoing Financial Accounting Standards Board-International Accounting Standards Board convergence project

Heedless Globalism: The SEC\u27s Roadmap to Accounting Convergence

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has introduced a Roadmap that describes a process leading to mandatory use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by domestic issuers by 2014. The SEC justifies this initiative on the grounds that global standardization yields cost savings and an ultimate gain in comparability, facilitating the search for global opportunities by u.s. investors and making u.s. capital markets more attractive to foreign issuers. This Article shows that the offered justification is inadequate. The SEC frames the matter as a choice between two institutional frameworks for standard setting, holding out high quality sets of standards, asking which choice reduces Fictions in global securities markets. Global market frictions are not the only stakes on the table. The two systems, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and IFRS, hold out materially different accounting treatment and the differences matter to domestic reporting companies and domestic users of financial statements. GAAP tends to constrain, where IFRS is flexible. GAAP\u27s constraints reflect normative choices, in particular preferences for conservatism, verifiability and transparent disclosure of current period results. It follows that the Roadmap poses a normative choice. What the SEC presents as an investor-driven initiative in fact abandons an investor-protective institutional arrangement of more than three decades\u27 duration and holds out costs for investors and incidental benefits for corporate managers and auditing .firms. This Article concludes the Roadmap should be withdrawn and the SEC should return to the point of departure-the ongoing Financial Accounting Standards Board-International Accounting Standards Board convergence project

Enhancing Securities Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Overview of the Legal and Institutional Arrangements in Kenya

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 1 No. 9 Special Issue – July 2011This paper explores the role of legal norms in the enhancement of securities markets in Sub-Saharan Africa where the markets are still nascent with specific reference to Kenya. Part I highlights the critical role that the legal and institutional framework plays in securities markets governance and investor protection. It postulates that for securities markets to thrive and deepen, countries must endeavor to create appropriate legal and institutional arrangements. Part II is an elucidation of the legal structures on securities markets and the financial services sector in Kenya. From the discussion, it is clear that the framework is characterized by gaps, duplications, inconsistencies and restrictions on investment. More importantly, there has never been a comprehensive approach to the promotion of financial services in Kenya. Part III examines the institutional arrangements and assesses their contribution to the enhancement of securities markets. Evidently, the multiplicity of regulatory bodies has not endeared the securities markets and there is need for reforms.This paper explores the role of legal norms in the enhancement of securities markets in Sub-Saharan Africa where the markets are still nascent with specific reference to Kenya. Part I highlights the critical role that the legal and institutional framework plays in securities markets governance and investor protection. It postulates that for securities markets to thrive and deepen, countries must endeavor to create appropriate legal and institutional arrangements. Part II is an elucidation of the legal structures on securities markets and the financial services sector in Kenya. From the discussion, it is clear that the framework is characterized by gaps, duplications, inconsistencies and restrictions on investment. More importantly, there has never been a comprehensive approach to the promotion of financial services in Kenya. Part III examines the institutional arrangements and assesses their contribution to the enhancement of securities markets. Evidently, the multiplicity of regulatory bodies has not endeared the securities markets and there is need for reforms

Revising European Safeguards and Antidumping Provisions in Light of the Chinese WTO Accession

PhDIn November 2001, the WTO members allowed the People's Republic of China, a formerly planned economy that is going through different stages of domestic economic and related legal restructuring, to accede to the WTO. This accession is believed to be necessary for the WTO to become a truly international organisation in the post-Cold War era, along side of the IMF and the World Bank, and for China to become an integrated member of the international economic community. Although the end of the Cold War has changed European trade policy profoundly, the European Community (EC)" has maintained a traditionally bifurcated trade policy, in which planned economies, also referred to as "non-market economies", are given treatment different from market economies in trade policy instruments, such as the EC emergency safeguards provisions and EC anti-dumping regulation. The EC perceives the Chinese domestic legal and economic reforms as unfinished; and, although the treatment of Chinese products under the EC import and anti-dumping regulations has been liberalised in recent years, China is still generally considered to be a non-market economy. It is questionable whether in light of China's WTO accession such a non-market approach vis-ä-vis China, as approved in the Chinese Protocol of Accession, is justified. This thesis argues that the non-market approach for China, as it stands today, should be adjusted for two basic reasons. First, this approach does not allow China to benefit fully from its WTO accession for a number of years to come. Second, as long as the period allowing non-market economy treatment continues, the danger exists that the non-market economy trade policy, especially as far as anti-dumping is concerned, may tend to be abused for protectionist purposes by the EC. Protectionist abuse would be harmful for China because its export-oriented growth is necessary to advance the country's domestic legal and economic reforms. Protectionism, equally, would be harmful for the EC because it prevents the Community industry from adjusting itself to face the challenge of increased Chinese competition. Because there is no satisfactory methodological solution to deal with the new variant of non-market economies, and because it is impossible for China - despite all good intentions - to implement fully the WTO accession requirements by the time they must phase in, the suggested approach is for the EC to show restraint in employing these trade policy instruments against China. As far as emergency safeguards are concerned, this restraint is already a fact. Nonetheless, some holdovers from the Cold War should be put up for change. Such adjustments will also be required for the EC anti-dumping regulation

Transnational Legal Activism in Global Value Chains

This open access book documents and analyses the various interventions – legal, political, and even artistic – that followed the Ali Enterprises factory fire in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2012. It illuminates the different substantive and procedural aspects of the legal proceedings and negotiations between the various local and transnational actors implicated in the Ali Enterprises fire, as well as the legal and policy reforms sparked by the incident. This endeavour serves to embed these legal cases and reform efforts in the larger context of human and labour rights protection and global value chain governance. It also offers a concrete case study relevant for ongoing debates around the role of transnational approaches in making human rights litigation, advocacy, and law reform more effective. In this regard, the book interrogates and critically reflects on such legal campaigns and local and transnational reform work with a view to future transformative legal and social activism

跨界数据流动对发展中国家管辖权的影响和法律对策

国内外从国家主权和基本权利的角度对跨界数据流动进行研究者甚为罕见。本论题中的跨界数据流动概念采用跨学科的定义。作为数据净流入国的发展中国家的基本权利中的管辖权正在遭受跨界数据流动的挑战。发展中国家应采纳效果原则,将立法管辖权扩展至包括网络空间在内的有关跨界数据流动的行为,以数字净输入方为本位构建国内和国际的信息通信技术法制

Wall Distance Evaluation Via Eikonal Solver for RANS Applications

RÉSUMÉ Les logiciels de mécanique des fluides assistée par ordinateur (CFD) sont de plus en plus utilisés pour la conception d’aéronefs. L’utilisation de grappes informatiques haute performance permet d’augmenter la puissance de calcul, aux prix de modifier la structure du code. Dans les codes CFD, les équations de Navier-Stokes moyennées (plus connues sous le nom des équations RANS) sont souvent résolues. Par conséquent, les modèles de turbulence sont utilisés pour approximer les effets de la turbulence. Dans l’industrie aéronautique, le modèle Spalart-Allmaras est bien accepté. La distance à la paroi dans ce modèle, par exemple, joue un rôle clé dans l’évaluation des forces aérodynamiques. L’évaluation de ce paramètre géométrique doit alors être précis et son calcul efficace. Avec les nouveaux développement des hardwares, un besoin se crée dans la communauté afin d’adapter les codes CFD à ceux-ci. Les algorithmes de recherche comme les distances euclidienne et projetée sont des méthodes souvent utilisées pour le calcul de la distance à la paroi et ont tendance à présenter une mauvaise scalabilité. Pour cette raison, un nouveau solveur pour la distance à la paroi doit être développé. Pour utiliser les solveurs et techniques d’accélération déjà existantes au sein du code CFD, l’équation Eikonal, une équation aux différentielles partielles non-linéaires, a été choisie. Dans la première partie du projet, le solveur d’équation Eikonal est développé en 2D et est résolue dans sa forme advective au centre de cellule. Les méthodes des différences finies et des volumes finis sont testées. L’équation est résolue à l’aide d’une discrétisation spatiale de premier ordre en amont. Les solveurs ont été vérifiés sur des cas canoniques, tels une plaque plane et un cylindre. Les deux méthodes de discrétisation réussissent à corriger les effets de maillages obliques et courbes. La méthode des différences finies possède un taux de convergence en maillage de deuxième ordre tandis que la méthode des volumes finis a un taux de convergence de premier ordre. L’addition d’une reconstruction linéaire de la solution à la face permet d’étendre la méthode des volumes finis à une méthode de deuxième ordre. De plus, les méthodes de différence finie et de volume fini de deuxième ordre permettent de bien représenter la distance à la paroi dans les zones de fort élargissement des cellules. L’équation Eikonal est ensuite vérifié sur plusieurs cas dont un profil NACA0012 en utilisant trois modèles de turbulence : Spalart-Allmaras, Menter SST et Mener-Langtry SST transitionnel.----------ABSTRACT Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software is being used more often nowadays in aircraft design. The use of high performance computing clusters can increase computing power, but requires change in the structure of the software. In the aeronautical industry, CFD codes are often used to solve the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, and turbulence models are frequently used to approximate turbulent effects on flow. The Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model is widely accepted in the industry. In this model, wall distance plays a key role in the evaluation of aerodynamic forces. Therefore calculation of this geometric parameter needs to be accurate and efficient. With new developments in computing hardware, there is a need to adapt CFD codes. Search algorithms such as Euclidean and projected distance are often the methods used for computation of wall distance but tend to exhibit poor scalability. For this reason, a new wall distance solver is developed here using the Eikonal equation, a non-linear partial differential equation, chosen to make use of existing solvers and acceleration techniques in RANS solvers. In the first part of the project, the Eikonal equation solver was developed in 2D and solved in its advective form at the cell center. Both finite difference and finite volume methods were tested. The Eikonal equation was also solved using a first-order upwind spatial discretization. The solvers were verified through canonical cases like a flat plate and a cylinder. Both methods were able to correct the effects of skewed and curved meshes. The finite difference method converged at a second-order rate in space while the finite volume method converged at a first-order rate. The addition of a linear reconstruction of the solution at the face extended the finite volume method to a second-order method. Moreover, both finite difference and second-order finite volume methods were well represented by wall distance in zones of strong cell growth. The finite difference method was chosen, as it required less computing time. The Eikonal equation was then verified for several cases including a NACA0012 using three turbulence models: Spalart-Allmaras, Menter’s SST and Menter-Langtry transitional SST. For the first model, the Eikonal equation was able to correct grid skewness on the turbulent viscosity as well as on the aerodynamic coefficients, while for the other two yielded results similar to Euclidean and projected distance. To verify the implementation and convergence of the multi-grid scheme, the new wall distance solver was tested on an ice-accreted airfoil. In addition, the overset grid capabilities of the wall distance solver were verified on the McDonnell Douglas airfoil. Finally, the DLR-F6, a 3D case, was solved to show that the Eikonal equation can be extended to 3D meshes