Creditors of the corporate business form are in a vulnerable position. Recognition of the plight of corporate creditors led to the implementation of various legal measures aimed at protecting their financial interest in the company. These measures proved disappointingly inadequate in many instances. As a result the judiciary in some jurisdictions felt compelled to develop existing legal principles pertaining to directors’ duties in such a way that they could be used to facilitate protection of corporate creditors’ interests. This development did not meet with universal approval. Those opposed to the extension of directors’ duties to protect creditors’ interests have three main arguments against it. The first is related to conceptual issues and policy concerns. The second argument is that existing remedies are more than adequate to protect creditors’ interests. A last argument against a directorial duty to creditors pertains to the practical implementation of this extended duty. It is argued that the existing legal framework with regard to directors’ duties is not suitable to provide protection for creditors’ interests. However, it was shown in this study that the extension of directors’ duties to protect creditors’ interests is indeed justifiable on a sound conceptual basis and that policy concerns regarding such an extension are either unfounded, or should be addressed in some other way. An analysis of existing protective measures and remedies often referred to by opponents of an extension of directors’ duties, namely statutory personal liability of directors, traditional insolvency remedies, and the piercing of the veil doctrine furthermore showed that these measures are inadequate. This leads to the conclusion that there is a definite need for an alternative remedy, such as the extension of directors’ duties to include creditors’ interests. The existing legal framework in respect of directors’ duties furthermore proved to be capable of being successfully adapted to include creditors’ interests. Central issues in this respect, as was indicated by an analysis of case law, are the point in time when the duty to creditors is triggered, the beneficiary of the duty, in other words who would have locus standi in case of a breach of the duty, and the type of protection afforded to creditors’ interests by way of fiduciary duties and the duty of care and skill. The existing legal framework also provides measures in terms of which honest and diligent directors may be relieved from liability, such as indemnification, relief granted by the courts and director liability insurance. These measures, if formulated correctly, may achieve and maintain the essential balance between accountability and entrepreneurial freedom. The legislature appears to have adopted a cautious approach to the issue of directors’ duties to creditors. It thus seems to be up to the judiciary to develop directors’ duties to creditors in a meaningful way. Pioneering in this respect has already been done in Australia, New Zealand, England, Canada and the United States of America. It is to be hoped that the South African judiciary will follow suit when the opportunity to do so arises. / Thesis (LLD (Mercantile Law))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

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The purpose of this study is to determine the nature and characteristics of the contractual relathionship between boards of education and public school teachers. The purpose is also to determine by analysis of a group of contract forms the nature of the stipulations found in the average contract.

Five studies investigated the links between rights-focused (RFM) and duty-focused mindsets (DFM) and prosociality. Making salient both RFM and DFM in a within-participants designs, Studies 1-2 examined the relationships of RFM and DFM with a number of outcomes related to prosocial attitudes. Results indicated that RFM and DFM both uniquely increased prosociality. Experimentally inducing either RFM or DFM in a between-participants design, Study 3 found that RFM had stronger effects on prosocial outcomes than DFM. Further, Study 3 showed that this relative advantage of RFM over DFM in boosting prosociality was due to RFM (relative to DFM) increasing people’s perceived importance and relevance of individualizing morality (harm and fairness). Study 4 thus explored the possibility that RFM’s greater default potential to increase prosociality is due to the inherent focus of rights on individuality, and whether, by the same token, DFM strengthen its potential to increase prosociality as long as the situation is highly individualized. Adding a baseline to the design of Study 3, and using a vignette paradigm, Study 4 showed that in a context of interpersonal helping (i.e., a highly individualized context), relative to baseline both RFM and (especially) DFM increased people’s prosocial attitudes and behavioral intentions. In a 2x2 design, Study 5 experimentally manipulated mindsets (RFM vs. DFM) as well as individuality (high vs. low, asking participants to think about someone in their inner or outer social network). In line with the individuality explanation, there was a general effect of individuality, prosociality being higher (across both RFM and DFM conditions) when participants thought about someone in their inner rather than outer social network. Together, these studies provide evidence for the prosocial potential of RFM; illuminate the roots of this potential; and, by doing so, show a way to leverage this knowledge to increase the prosocial potential of DFM.

There are two tasks of this dissertation. Firstly, it will make a contribution from a theoretical perspective. Some Western scholars conclude that rules and institutions transplanted from Western jurisdictions have not worked well in the Chinese legal system so far. This is because the level of consistency between the transplanted rules or institutions and the local context is still at a low level. However, this dissertation takes a different position. By solving a series of unanswered questions, it will make a theoretical contribution to the scholarship on comparative corporate governance in the context of the transitional economy. By and large, it will answer the question: "why can China, as representative of a transitional economy, not escape from the faith of legal transplant in its legal reform of corporate governance". Secondly, this dissertation will make a contribution from a practical perspective. Many Chinese lawyers and Western scholars complain that Chinese company law is suffering deeply from the problem of ambiguity. Indeed, it is poorly and inconsistently drafted. There is, nevertheless, no systematic study on how to solve this problem in a pragmatic manner. In light of the proposed theoretical research, this dissertation will provide an important response on this issue. It rebuilds the director's fiduciary duties and shareholder's fiduciary duties by inserting some workable legal rules from the UK into the existing legal regime in China.

The aim of this thesis is to present a systematic overview of the legal instruments that the Labour Code provides to employers against employees who breach their duties. It is the societal interest that the obligations have been followed, and so it is in the labour process. By each breach of working obligations undesirable loss may arise to employers, notwithstanding on a possible overall decrease in the labor moral on the workplace. The Labour Code does not contain a definition of violations of duties, therefore a large role in its evaluation plays a judicial practice. Therefore much of this thesis is based on case-law. The thesis consists of four chapters, which are further divided into subchapters and parts. The first chapter describes the various sources from which duties of employees during the working process can occur - legislation, contracts, internal regulations of employer and instructions of the employer or the employer's senior staff. The second chapter deals with the obligations of employees that are required to comply with. At first, attention is paid to the obligations that apply to all employees without exception, then further there are discussed specific responsibilities of senior employees and employees who provide state administration and self-government. From the very specific...

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Petitions of different kinds are emerging as an increasingly used source for studies of early modern Sweden and beyond. Supplications offer historians great opportunities to examine claims coming from people of various backgrounds, and the larger complex of contemporary ideas these arguments were built on. In these documents, petitioners often bring up the issue of poverty. The purpose of the thesis has been to elucidate this language of poverty and the ideas and values behind its invocation, through studying how people described and used it in their communication with the County Administration of Uppsala between 1730 and 1734. The study has shown that statements of poverty were deployed by a large variety of people, but women were more prone to speak about it than men, especially in echelons above the peasantry. Poverty was used in several ways: to denote a subordinate relation in the social hierarchy, as an enhancer of plight or as something which was not deserved as the petitioners had fulfilled the duties expected of them. By calling themselves poor or emphasizing their blameless destitution, supplicants could ask for the County governor’s protection, try to establish themselves as deserving of help or invoke notions of Christian compassion. Behind the statements of poverty lay ideas of hierarchy and reciprocity set out in the Lutheran Table of Duties, which provided a base for the supplicants’ claims for help.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of administrative duties on effective classroom management in the Further Education and Training phase in the Sedibeng West District (08) of the Gauteng Province by focusing on classroom management; management skills of professional teachers; the relationship between teaching and management; guidelines for effective classroom management; juridical aspects regarding classroom management; workload of school-based teachers; duties and responsibilities of teachers; impact of workload of school-based teachers; educational policies; other policies and factors impacting on teachers' workload; and factors that drive teachers away from teaching. The literature study reveals that administrative duties take up a great deal of teachers' time. This is due to a number of factors, namely: shortages of teachers and high learner numbers; departmental accountability measures such as the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS); curriculum and assessment requirements; and the lack of basic resources. Stress regarding classroom administration exacerbates because teachers have to perform a variety of tasks, from secretarial and administrative to curricular, extracurricular and pastoral work. A major finding emanating from the research is that teachers should be released from excessive amounts of administrative duties and other activities that increase their workload and distract their focus from teaching. In order to eliminate these excessive amounts of administrative duties, the Department of Education should, through proper planning and cooperation with the School Management Team (SMT) provide extra posts in schools for administrators who can assist teachers. The empirical study consists of a structured questionnaire distributed to a sample of principals, deputy principals, heads of departments and teachers in schools in the Sedibeng West District (08) of the Gauteng Province. It aims to develop guidelines to assist teachers to cope better with the increased administrative demands. The main findings of the study reveal that most teachers have difficulties in coping with the pace at which the Whole School Evaluation Policy, IQMS, Continuous Assessment Policy and the new curriculum are being implemented. Together with the increased amount of administrative duties, an urgent need exists for support from the Department of Education and the District Office regarding the implementation and the alleviation of administrative demands. This study recommends, on the basis of both the literature review and the empirical research, guidelines to assist all teachers in coping with these increased administrative demands effectively. / Thesis (M.Ed. (Education Management))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.