This paper explores the distinction between ‘equity’ and ‘liabilities’ in financial reporting in order to assess the merits of the current system of accounting for share-based payment transactions. It applies an interpretive methodology. Data were collected from a series of interviews with purposefully selected experts. Criticisms of and support for the current accounting regime are interpretively analysed and used to identify key themes or principles for evaluating the merits of three models proposed in the academic literature: the strict liability, narrow equity and ownership-settlement models. The study finds that the strict liability approach remains supported on the grounds that it provides decisionuseful information with which users are familiar. The other models are rejected as they are perceived as diminishing the usefulness of financial reporting. The study also identifies support for an obligation-centric approach, not fully developed in the literature, which may require detailed consideration by standard-setters. Overall, these findings will be useful for both practitioners and academics grappling with the difficulty of defining ‘equity’ and ‘liabilities’. In addition, the research makes a valuable contribution by addressing the need for interpretive-inspired financial reporting research. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this thesis is also the first South African study to investigate the appropriate classification criteria for instruments such as share-based payments and provide normative recommendations for the International Accounting Standards Board.

Environmental remediation liabilities are generated primarily as a result of past actions by a firm. The most important of these liabilities for domestic U.S. firms are related to Superfund sites as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These liabilities are important for domestic firms because of their size, which is estimated to be approximately $300 billion (Congressional Budget Office 1994) and because of public concern for the environment. This study examines the relation among bond ratings, bond yields, and EPA-based estimates of contingent environmental remediation liabilities to test if the relationships hold as theory implies it would. Extant theory suggests that financial variables, such as environmental remediation liabilities, have incremental explanatory power beyond the information included in bond ratings for bond yield. The purpose of this study is to determine the importance of external estimates of a firm's contingent environmental liabilities for a firm's cost of debt. In addition, the manner in which a firm's contingent environmental liabilities are included in the costs of debt is examined in this study. The results of this study indicate that external estimates for environmental liabilities are associated with the bond ratings and bond yield for a data set of new bond issues collected from the period 1995 to 1997. Despite that firms are increasing their recognition of environmental liabilities, either due to regulatory pressure or other factors, the measures based on EPA data still have significant explanatory power. The results imply that firms are either still lagging in appropriate recognition or that the external measures proxy for amounts imputed by the capital markets for some probable unspecified future costs. The latter explanation is supported by additional evidence in this study that the largest monetary measure of the liability is the most significantly associated with bond ratings and bond yields. Further, the results indicate that the external estimates are incorporated in bond ratings as part of the firm's default risk and have no direct influence over bond yield beyond that included in the bond ratings. This implies that bond ratings are particularly important for any evaluation of investment in debt securities from firms that have contingent environmental liabilities. / Ph. D.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Göttingen.

Durante as últimas três décadas a preocupação com a qualidade do ambiente e a percepção de suas interfaces com as questões econômicas e sociais passou a integrar, com importância e destaque crescentes, a agenda dos principais temas mundiais. Surge como decorrência desse processo a alteração da relação da sociedade com o setor produtivo, que passa a ser visto e avaliado não apenas como um provedor de emprego, renda, bens e serviços, mas também como um consumidor de recursos ambientais. No caso do setor elétrico brasileiro, tal situação tem se apresentado com bastante evidência, particularmente no caso da geração de energia, em função do porte dos empreendimentos e do elevado potencial de degradação ambiental. A questão do passivo ambiental de Usinas Hidrelétricas surge, nesse contexto, como um dos principais pontos de preocupação das partes interessadas como: órgãos reguladores, ONG\'s ambientalistas, gestores, investidores etc. Entretanto, o debate estabelecido em torno do tema tem se dado de forma ainda pouco consistente, pela ausência da um referencial conceitual e metodológico de identificação e avaliação do passivo ambiental de usinas hidrelétricas. Este trabalho aborda esta questão e propõe uma metodologia de identificação e critérios de avaliação de passivos ambientais de usinas hidrelétricas. Tal metodologia adota procedimentos de auditoria ambiental embasados em elementos conceituais e técnicos da economia do meio ambiente, da avaliação de impactos ambientais e da legislação ambiental aplicada. Como um primeiro teste da base metodológica e conceitual proposta é realizado, também, um estudo de caso sobre a Usina Hidrelétrica Escola Politécnica, construída e operada pela CESP Companhia Energética de São Paulo. / During the last three decades the concern about environmental quality and its economic and social relationship grew up and became one of the main points of the world agenda. Therefore, Society and productive sector relationship has been changing. Nowadays, the companies are evaluated not as a income, jobs, services and goods suppliers only but also as a environmental services and goods consumers and as a sources of pollution and degradation. This situation is quite visible in the Brazilian electrical sector, specially in the production phase, due its high environmental potential degradation. In this context, the hydropower plants environmental liability has been taking the attention of the stackholders like regulatory agencies, environmental NGO\'s, managers and investitors. However, existing public debate about this question lacks of a consistent conceptual and methodological basis. This work proposes a environmental liability identification, evaluation and analysis methodology for hydropower plants. The methodology proposed use a Environmental Audit approach based on elements of environmental economy, environmental impact assessment technics and environmental legislation. As a rst test of this methodology, the work describes and presents the results of the Usina Politécnica Hydropower Plant case study.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 29, 2009). Advisor: Alam Pervaiz. Keywords: Off-Balance-Sheet Pension Liability, Earnings Quality, Cost of Capital, and Analysts' Forecasts. Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-243).

Durante as últimas três décadas a preocupação com a qualidade do ambiente e a percepção de suas interfaces com as questões econômicas e sociais passou a integrar, com importância e destaque crescentes, a agenda dos principais temas mundiais. Surge como decorrência desse processo a alteração da relação da sociedade com o setor produtivo, que passa a ser visto e avaliado não apenas como um provedor de emprego, renda, bens e serviços, mas também como um consumidor de recursos ambientais. No caso do setor elétrico brasileiro, tal situação tem se apresentado com bastante evidência, particularmente no caso da geração de energia, em função do porte dos empreendimentos e do elevado potencial de degradação ambiental. A questão do passivo ambiental de Usinas Hidrelétricas surge, nesse contexto, como um dos principais pontos de preocupação das partes interessadas como: órgãos reguladores, ONG\'s ambientalistas, gestores, investidores etc. Entretanto, o debate estabelecido em torno do tema tem se dado de forma ainda pouco consistente, pela ausência da um referencial conceitual e metodológico de identificação e avaliação do passivo ambiental de usinas hidrelétricas. Este trabalho aborda esta questão e propõe uma metodologia de identificação e critérios de avaliação de passivos ambientais de usinas hidrelétricas. Tal metodologia adota procedimentos de auditoria ambiental embasados em elementos conceituais e técnicos da economia do meio ambiente, da avaliação de impactos ambientais e da legislação ambiental aplicada. Como um primeiro teste da base metodológica e conceitual proposta é realizado, também, um estudo de caso sobre a Usina Hidrelétrica Escola Politécnica, construída e operada pela CESP Companhia Energética de São Paulo. / During the last three decades the concern about environmental quality and its economic and social relationship grew up and became one of the main points of the world agenda. Therefore, Society and productive sector relationship has been changing. Nowadays, the companies are evaluated not as a income, jobs, services and goods suppliers only but also as a environmental services and goods consumers and as a sources of pollution and degradation. This situation is quite visible in the Brazilian electrical sector, specially in the production phase, due its high environmental potential degradation. In this context, the hydropower plants environmental liability has been taking the attention of the stackholders like regulatory agencies, environmental NGO\'s, managers and investitors. However, existing public debate about this question lacks of a consistent conceptual and methodological basis. This work proposes a environmental liability identification, evaluation and analysis methodology for hydropower plants. The methodology proposed use a Environmental Audit approach based on elements of environmental economy, environmental impact assessment technics and environmental legislation. As a rst test of this methodology, the work describes and presents the results of the Usina Politécnica Hydropower Plant case study.

Management consultants experience numerous hindrances to the successful completion of strategy projects. Hindrances create an inability to strategise and are the result of inability preconditions. These preconditions accumulate into liabilities that not only limit the management consultant's ability to earn economic rents, but also that of its clients. Liabilities are rooted in the resource-based view and stem from previously identified liabilities such as the liabilities of newness and legitimacy. The consequences of unmitigated liabilities in the process of strategising are, however, not limited to the loss of economic rents. Unmitigated strategising liabilities will further result in prolonged competitive disadvantage. Combined, these consequences transform the liabilities into a strategic liability for the management consultant's client, which could bring about business failure. While academic literature is full of articles investigating the consultant–client relationship, it remains silent on the liabilities or hindrances faced by management consultants during the strategising process. Considering that these liabilities are effectively costing organisations billions of US dollars; can be regarded as strategic liabilities; have not been investigated by academia; and fall within both Domain H and Domain G of Strategy-as-Practice research that has been earmarked as future directions in this field, it is critical to identify, understand and mitigate the liabilities that consultants are most likely to encounter in the process of assisting organisations with strategising. The primary objectives of the research that informs this dissertation are to: <ul> <li> Identify liabilities that consultants face during the strategising process;</li> <li> Determine interrelationships between the relevant liabilities;</li> <li> Identify possible mediating and moderating factors associated with the relevant liabilities;</li> <li> Determine to which extent the relevant liabilities are experienced by consultants;</li> <li> Develop a conceptual framework for mitigating the liabilities</li> </ul> The research that informs this dissertation was undertaken from a Strategy-as-Practice perspective and is presented in three research articles. The first research article is based on research that set out to establish a theoretical baseline for the two subsequent articles. It endeavoured to identify and present a theoretical management consultant liabilities framework through the combination of an integrative literature review procedure and the systems approach. Semi-structured interviews were subsequently conducted to determine the practical relevancy of the theoretical liabilities framework which resulted from the first article. Snowball sampling was used and a saturation point was reached after 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with practising consultants. The results of this research informed research article two. The research on which this dissertation was based contributes to the accumulation of Strategy-as-Practice knowledge. Used correctly, the resultant framework could reduce the number of management consultants with an inability to strategise successfully. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Business Management / unrestricted

Magister Legum - LLM / The global financial crisis resulted in a corporate collapse in different parts of the world. The global financial crisis was caused by poor governance. Consequently many countries, including South Africa, began to place more emphasis on good governance. The framework and guidelines for the development of good governance in South African company law was published by the Department of Trade of Trade and Industry (hereafter DTI) in a document referred to as The South African Company Law for the 21st Century: Guidelines for Corporate Law Reform (hereafter the DTI Policy Document) published by the DTI. The DTI Policy Document recognised the need for a regulatory framework within which enterprises operate to promote growth, employment, innovation, stability, good governance, confidence and international competitiveness. In order to further develop governance, the effectiveness of directors’ standards as well as the liability of directors was also said to have developed. Prior to the development of South African corporate law, liability of directors was to a large extent governed by the common law and the King Codes, despite the existence of the Companies Act 61 of 1973 (as amended). As of the 1st of May 2011, corporate law in South Africa appears to have dramatically changed the duties and liabilities of directors. The 1st of May 2011 marked the implementation of Companies Act 71 of 2008 (hereafter the Act). The Act is written in plain language in an attempt to make it more accessible and align it with international trends. The Act has also theoretically changed the roles and duties of directors as well as the liability that they may face in that it potentially changes the existing common law and alters policies and philosophies of corporate law in general. The Act partially codifies the common law and introduces the business judgement rule to South Africa. The business judgment rule will draw a balance between the directors’ ability to steer a company and the shareholders' right to hold directors accountable for their decisions. It is perceived as a mechanism that can be used to balance the tension between these opposing rights.

O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar o comportamento da evidenciação dos riscos potenciais representados pelas informações contidas nas provisões e passivos contingentes das empresas. O estudo analisou a divulgação das informações sobre riscos potenciais nas demonstrações contábeis dos exercícios de 2002, 2006, 2010 e 2012, utilizando como parâmetro as recomendações de órgãos normativos nacionais: 2012 foi o período mais próximo ao encerramento da coleta de dados, enquanto que em cada um dos demais períodos mencionados ocorreram mudanças significativas em termos de normas contábeis. O campo de pesquisa do presente trabalho constitui-se das notas explicativas das demonstrações financeiras das empresas do setor de energia elétrica, listadas na BM&FBOVESPA, dos exercícios mencionados. O setor de energia elétrica foi escolhido devido sua representatividade no mercado acionário brasileiro - 16,46% do total; à modernização na regulamentação contábil ocorrida como processo de privatização das empresas estatais; e por adotar normatizações internacionais na elaboração de suas demonstrações contábeis, contribuindo assim para a análise temporal proposta no presente estudo. No presente trabalho pode-se verificar a evolução dos informações que as empresas do setor de energia elétrica estão divulgando ao mercado, avaliando o comportamento das informações sobre riscos potenciais para os usuários das demonstrações contábeis. Os resultados encontrados mostram que as empresas do setor de energia elétrica tiveram evolução em sua divulgação de riscos potenciais principalmente entre os anos 2002 e 2006, fato este devido à modernização da regulamentação contábil neste período; nos períodos entre os anos 2010 e 2012, houve melhora na quantidade das informações sobre riscos potenciais, que o setor de energia elétrica passou a divulgar ao mercado, com relatórios mais detalhados, com maior número de evidências para que os usuários das demonstrações contábeis possam distinguir quais empresas apresentam maior risco e qual o nível de risco das companhias. Com isto pode-se verificar que as empresas do setor estudado apresentaram uma curva de aprendizagem conforme a evolução da legislação aplicável a matéria estudada. / The objective of this work is to identify the behavior of the disclosure of the potential risks posed by information contained in provisions and contingent liabilities of companies. The study analyzed the dissemination of information about potential risks in the financial statements for the years 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2012, using as a parameter the recommendations of national standards bodies: 2012 was the closest to the closure of the data collection period, while in each of the remaining periods mentioned significant changes in terms of accounting standards. The search field of this study represents the notes to the financial statements of companies in the electricity sector listed on the BM&FBOVESPA, the exercises mentioned. The electricity sector was chosen due to its representation in the Brazilian market - 16.46 % of the total; modernizations in accounting regulation occurred as the privatization of state enterprises; and adopt international norms in preparing its financial statements, thereby contributing to the temporal analysis proposed in this study. In the present work can be seen the evolution of information that companies in the electric power industry are touting the market, evaluating the behavior of information on potential risks to users of the financial statements. The results show that companies in the electricity sector had developments in their disclosure of potential risks mainly between 2002 and 2006, a fact due to the modernization of accounting regulation in this period; the periods between the years 2010 and 2012 , there was an improvement in the amount of information about potential risks, the electricity sector began to disclose to the market, with more detailed reports, with more evidence that users of financial statements can distinguish which companies present greater risk and what level of risk companies. With this it can be seen that the companies analyzed sector showed a learning curve as the evolution of the material being studied applicable law.

Este trabalho buscou primeiramente caracterizar passivos ambientais em empreendimentos energéticos, em especial nos de armazenamento de energia. Para isto, avaliou-se as atividades potenciais de contaminação em empreendimentos com armazenamento de energia, em qualquer uma de suas formas (energia eletroquímica, elétrica, mecânica, cinética, hidráulica, térmica, química e nuclear). Foi elaborada uma sequência metodológica de levantamento de informações, com posterior associação entre os contaminantes e as atividades fonte de contaminação. Para um dos tipos de fontes de contaminação através de combustíveis, foi realizado um ensaio de bancada com amostras de combustível diluídas em água, para avaliar em laboratório se somente os compostos BTEX e PAH estão presentes, uma vez que são os geralmente analisados em áreas de armazenamento de gasolina e diesel, objetivando mensurar se a análise de somente estes compostos são suficientes para abranger o potencial toxicológico dessa contaminação. Como resultado constatou-se a necessidade de incluir os Trimetilbenzenos nas análises padrão realizadas nas áreas de armazenamento dos combustíveis avaliados. Para os mesmos tipos de contaminantes, os derivados de combustíveis, foram realizadas campanhas de oxidação química (ISCO) num posto de combustíveis desativado através da injeção de oxidante no aquífero freático, buscando a redução das concentrações para a intervenção de obras civis de uma nova ocupação para o imóvel. Os resultados obtidos foram satisfatórios, atendendo os objetivos pré-definidos, demonstrando a eficácia do processo oxidativo para a degradação de derivados de combustíveis utilizando-se o Persulfato de Sódio, ativado tanto por metais complexados (FeEDTA) quanto por aplicação em meio alcalino. / This study sought initially to characterize environmental liabilities in energy enterprises, especially in energy storage ones. Therefore, we evaluated the potential contamination activities within developments with energy storage in any of its forms (electrochemical, electrical, mechanical, kinetic, hydraulic, thermal, chemical and nuclear energy). A survey was elaborated using a methodological sequence to gather information, with subsequent association between the contaminant and the source of contamination activities. For one of the types of sources of contamination by fuel, we performed a bench and lab test using fuel diluted in water samples to evaluate if only the BTEX and HPA compounds, usually analyzed in areas of gasoline and diesel storage, are sufficient to cover the toxicological potential of such contamination. The results suggested the need to include trimethylbenzene in the standard analysis performed in the fuel storage areas evaluated. For the same types of contaminants, derivatives of fuels, chemical oxidation campaigns (ISCO) were carried out using direct push injections at a deactivated gas station, seeking to reduce concentrations for the intervention of civil works for a new occupation of the land. The results were satisfactory and the proposed goals have been achieved demonstrating the effectiveness of the oxidation process for the degradation of derived of fuels by using the Sodium Persulfate, activated by complexed metals (FeEDTA) and also by application in alkaline environment.