It is well known that in English law the indemnity insurers stand in a better position than the assureds and this is especially true when a claim is delayed: in that scenario, the insurer is neither liable for the damage caused by the late payment, nor for the compound interest. In Sprung v. Royal Insurance ([1999] 1 Lloyd's Rep IR 111) this unfair situation was justified by the Court of Appeal, naturally, it brought an opportunity for the Law Commission to reconsider the law. Recently, the new Insurance Act 2015 has been enacted and subsequently amended by the Enterprise Act 2016 in regards to the insurer’s obligation to make a timely payment; however, the legal effect of the new legislation is unknown due to the lack of binding precedents. In this work, the duty of the indemnity insurer shall be discussed in full and this work will try to make a contribution to the interpretation of the new legislation regarding to the obligation of the insurer and remedies for the assured.

No / A central element in developing credit management policy involves design choices on the extent to which credit activities are best managed internally or through specialist market intermediaries. This paper draws on the findings of a survey on the credit management practices and policies of large UK companies to: (1) Examine the type of firm most likely to enter into specialist external credit management structural arrangements; and (2) Identify contextual and credit policy choices influencing the credit period taken and late payment of debts. The study found that specialist intermediaries are not particularly common in large firms. The paper also identifies a number of contextual and policy variables that help explain variation in debtor days and late payment by customers.

[pt] A pesquisa procura identificar influências temporais nas tomadas de decisão de consumidores de baixa renda, relacionadas ao endividamento. Inseridos em uma sociedade cuja cultura exalta o consumo como forma de ser e pertencer, os indivíduos dessas classes vivem hoje a oportunidade de possuir bens antes inacessíveis. O incentivo dado pelo crédito facilitado e por um ambiente macroeconômico favorável, onde juros e taxa de desemprego corroboram para a sensação de estabilidade, pode se mostrar uma armadilha para esse grupo de indivíduos, que querem consumir, mas dependem do crédito como forma de ampliar seu poder de compra. A pesquisa é de natureza qualitativa, baseando-se em entrevistas em profundidade. Baseada em narrativas individuais, revelam-se sonhos e aspirações de um grupo de 16 indivíduos e a necessidade de decidir pelo consumo imediato ou poupar para atingir seus objetivos. Apesar de, racionalmente, concordarem com a importância de se pensar e planejar o futuro, a experiência de vida própria, ou de familiares e amigos, testemunha contra qualquer previsibilidade e reforça o pensamento de que o futuro, a Deus pertence. / [en] The research seeks to identify temporal influences in decision making of low-income consumers, relating to indebtedness. Living in a society whose culture glorifies consumption as a way of being and belonging, those individuals have today the opportunity to buy goods previously inaccessible. The encouragement given by easy credit and a favorable macroeconomic environment, where interest and unemployment rates corroborate the sense of stability, may prove a trap for this group of individuals who want to consume, but depend on the credit as a way to expand your purchasing power. The research is qualitative in nature, based on in-depth interviews. Based on individual narratives that reveal the dreams and aspirations of a group of 16 individuals and their need to decide between immediate consumption or saving for achieving your goals. Although rationally agree on the importance of thinking and planning for the future, the experience of life itself, or from family and friends, witness against any predictability and reinforces the thought that the future belongs to God.

[pt] Entre 2006 e 2010, os preços de imóveis nos EUA caíram cerca de 30 por cento, fazendo com que o principal de um grande número de contratos de hipoteca ficasse abaixo do valor do imóvel. A teoria de default estratégico prediz que devedores nessa situação - chamada de negative equity value - deveriam entregar o imóvel e abandonar o contrato. Entretanto, a taxa de default em hipotecas com negative equity value, além de ser surpreendentemente baixa. Esta dissertação explica a baixa taxa de default no mercado americano de hipotecas a partir de preocupações dos credores em conseguir crédito imobiliário no futuro. O modelo mostra que tal preocupação é mais grave para devedores de baixa renda que se beneficiaram do crédito facilitado advindo da explosão de preços dos imóveis, mas que estão cientes de que tais facilidades provavelmente não estarão presentes no futuro. Os credores de baixa renda, portanto, têm mais incentivos a evitar default em hipotecas de negative equity value do que credores de mais alta renda, que antecipam facilidades em obter novo crédito imobiliário. Utilizando um painel de estados dos EUA para testar a existência deste efeito, mostramos que a inadimplência é mais sensível à queda no preço dos imóveis em áreas com maior renda per capita. / [en] Between 2006 and 2010, the price of houses in the United States fell by 30 percent, implying that a large number of mortgage contracts had negative equity value, that is, a debt outstanding higher than the house value. In these mortgage contracts, it pays for the borrowers to exchange their homes for the write-off of the debt. And yet, the delinquency rate among negative equity mortgages is surprisingly low. This paper argues that the fear of losing access to the credit markets explains why the delinquency rate remained relatively low in the U.S. after the Subprime crises. Our model shows that, with the end of the bubble in the housing market, low-income families are unlikely to qualify for the mortgage contracts they hold. Hence, fear of losing access to credit market lowers their incentive to walk away from their current mortgage contracts, even if they have negative equity value. Using a panel of US states to test the existence of this effect, we show that delinquency is more sensible to a decrease of house prices in areas with higher per capita income.

[pt] Este artigo objetiva decompor o spread bancário utilizando um modelo macroeconômico estrutural. Nós enriquecemos um arcabouço de equilíbrio geral com empréstimos para indivíduos e firmas que podem inadimplir, um setor bancário em competição monopolística e sujeito a custos administrativos e também acrescentamos uma estrutura de impostos relacionadas a intermediação bancária. Essas características da composição do spread estão em linha com a literatura empírica dos determinantes do spread bancário e com a decomposição contábil do spread realizada pelo Banco Central do Brasil (BCB). Nossa análise quantitativa revela que a redução do spread para indivíduos é maior quando aumentamos a competição no mercado bancário (3.77 p.p. trimestral ou 54 porcento comparado a calibração baseline). Ademais, redução do custo administrativo é a maneira mais eficaz para reduzir o spread para firmas (1.35 p.p. trimestral ou 46 porcento comparado a calibração baseline) e também é capaz de reduzir o spread para indivíduos (2.5 p.p. trimestral ou 36 porcento comparado a calibração baseline). Resultados também sugerem cuidado na formulação de políticas econômicas somente baseadas na decomposição contábil realizada pelo BCB e sem um modelo econômico fundamentando a análise. Esta dissertação também revela alguns desafios relacionados à inclusão da inadimplência juntamente com um mercado bancário em competição imperfeita e sua contribuição para formação do spread. / [en] This paper aims to decompose the banking spread using a structural macroeconomic model. We embedded a general equilibrium framework with loans to households and entrepreneurs that may be in default, a banking sector in monopolistic competition and subject to administrative costs, and we also added a tax structure related to bank intermediation. These characteristics for the composition of the spread are in line with the empirical literature on banking spread determinants in Brazil and with the accounting decomposition of the spread made by the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB). Our quantitative findings reveal that household spread reduction is greater when we increase competition in the banking sector (3.77 p.p. quarterly or 54 percent decrease compared to baseline calibration). Furthermore, reducing administrative cost is the most effective way of diminishing entrepreneur spread (1.35 p.p. quarterly or 46 percent decrease compared to baseline) and it is also capable of diminishing household spread (2.5 p.p. quarterly or 36 percent decrease compared to baseline). Results also suggest some careful actions by policy makers only supported by BCB accounting decomposition without an economic model underpinning the analysis. This dissertation also reveals some challenges regarding the inclusion of credit default with a banking sector in imperfect competition and its contribution to the spread formation.

Delay in commercial commitments and its consequences The purpose of the thesis is to describe all the aspects of delay in commercial commitments in the law system of the Czech Republic with focus on the consequences a delay may cause. Even though the history of the respective legislation is long and uninterrupted (it basically dates back to the Austrian General Civil Code from 1811), certain cases of indistinct interpretation in every-day use of the rules may still arise and that is the reason for elaborating the research. Legislation, expert interpretation of the legislation, papers from professional journals and a number of judicatures, mostly decisions of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic, are used to thoroughly analyse the topic. The Czech Commercial Code recognises two general kinds of delay - debtor's delay, which occurs if the debtor does not fulfil their (usually contractual) duties in time and/or properly and creditor's delay, that is initiated by the creditor if they do not accept proper fulfilment from the debtor and that supersedes the debtor's delay, if it may be in place. In case of the debtor's delay the law automatically guarantees the creditor several rights. They have the right to insist on the proper fulfilment to be delivered or they are entitled to cancel the contract, if...

Contractual penalty is an effective and in practice often used type of security. However, we cannot consider the Czech legal regulation of the contractual penalty as ideal and there have been many difficulties connected with the application of this instrument. The thesis aims at clarification of the functions of contractual penalty, conditions for its valid and effective creation and consequences of the excessive sum of contractual penalty. Furthermore, the thesis focuses on the relation between contractual penalty and other legal instruments and finally also on comparison with other types of security. Main legal sources of the final thesis are court decisions, especially judgments of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic. In the thesis there are used methods of historical and comparative interpretation.

An insurance contract is a contract of utmost good faith. The nature of the insurance bargain makes the duty a commercial necessity. Duties of disclosure and representation, which were two fundamental components of the principle of utmost good faith, operate in different ways in England and China. The insured and insurer in these two countries bears distinctive good faith related obligations pre- and post-contractually. English insurance law exercise considerable influence in most common law countries and some civil law jurisdictions. The separation between utmost good faith and the duty of fair presentation, with the abolition of the avoidance remedy, under the Insurance Act 2015 could influence other jurisdictions to alter their remedies. This thesis examines the application of the civil law notion of good faith and the common law duty of utmost good faith. It covers the operation of insured’s pre-contractual duties of disclosure and representation in both countries. The thesis considers the insurer’s duties as well as the continuing duties and the effect of utmost good faith taking in account the recent legislative changes on fraudulent claims and late payment. The thesis further examines the legal status of brokers and their disclosure duty in China and England. Finally, it also provides special considerations on consumers and micro-businesses.

The dynamics of our globalised world open the way for international trade and transactions between different countries; this may lead to conflicts in laws where transactions and trade may be subject to different legal systems. One of the biggest issues in international commercial law is disputes over the charging of interest, for example with regard to late payment, interest-based loans, or compensation for damages. Interest disputes are considered to be a complex area of law and even more complex in the international field. At the international level, interest claims may be connected to many areas of commerce and thus governed by various laws, which are different from one country to another; moreover, each country has its own interest rate and such rates are changeable according to the nature of law and economics under some jurisdictions. Furthermore, the concept of interest itself is affected by influences such as religious beliefs and economic, political and cultural trends. Interest can be treated as a substantive or a procedural matter. The settlement of these disputes therefore faces difficulties. Arbitration, as a method for settlement of disputes, is characterised by special features that assist in resolving these issues; but it faces some obstructions, especially in international commercial arbitration. The practices of arbitral tribunals and national courts in this regard are different. The results of different interpretations, approaches, and theories with regard to arbitration, at the pre-arbitration, during arbitration and post-arbitration stages, may also differ widely due to the diversity of financial and legal systems such as Common Law, Civil Law and the Islamic legal system – Sharia Law – across different countries. Each legal system has a different methodology and theories, even within an individual country under one legal system, and a state within a federal system has its own laws, which may have different interpretations in this respect. The New York Convention of 1958 on enforcing foreign arbitral awards was established in favour of arbitral awards and for the purpose of unifying international rules of arbitration. This Convention provides some procedural and substantive rules for the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, but also provides some grounds for refusal. These rules have been affected by different interpretations under different jurisdictions and legal systems, which lead to different perspectives on the matter of charging interest and settlement by arbitration. The outcome of applying the NYC under these interpretations often has the opposite of its intended effect: the rejection of foreign arbitral awards. Due to such ambiguities, courts occasionally intervene in arbitration in all its stages. The interventions of national courts occur in three stages: enforcement of the arbitration agreement, enforcement of the contract under the applicable law to the agreement, and enforcement of the foreign arbitral award. The confusion between substantive and procedural laws also creates confusion with respect to public policy, non-arbitrability and enforceability. In addition, there may be a lack of clarity on the scope of arbitration with respect to the parties’ agreement, whether or not the parties have agreed to the interest rates and periods and whether or not they have agreed to the authority of the arbitrator. These issues affect the enforceability of an arbitration agreement, the law applicable to the disputed contract, the freedom of parties, the authority of the arbitrators and the enforceability of the awarded interest. The thesis studies how arbitral awards containing interest have been interpreted across the three aforementioned legal systems under the NYC 1958 in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, England, France, and the US and the enforceability of such awards.

[pt] Tão expressiva quanto a curva de crescimento do número de matrículas nas instituições de ensino superior (IES) privadas nos últimos anos é a respectiva curva da inadimplência, cujo aumento pode ser explicado, principalmente, pelo aprofundamento da crise econômica no país e pela redução do número de vagas ofertadas pelo FIES. A inadimplência apresenta-se como um desafio à gestão financeira das instituições de ensino, uma vez que impacta os seus custos operacionais e acaba sendo repassada aos alunos sob forma de aumento de mensalidade. Além disso, a evasão estudantil é também uma das principais consequências da inadimplência, à medida que alunos com dificuldades financeiras acabam por abandonar seus cursos, representando para as instituições de ensino não só uma perda econômica, como também acadêmica e social. As IES, em sua maioria, não utilizam qualquer tipo de técnica de credit scoring para prever o risco de seus alunos se tornarem inadimplentes. Nesse sentido, este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia quantitativa para previsão de risco de inadimplência de alunos ativos. Baseado em dados históricos de alunos que estavam inadimplentes ou adimplentes, modelos gerados por algoritmos de machine learning foram estimados e comparados. Por fim, os resultados obtidos evidenciaram a relação entre a inadimplência e a variação do valor pago ao longo dos semestres analisados, quantidade média de disciplinas cursadas, natureza empregatícia ao aluno e existência de débitos em semestres anteriores. Com a aplicação dos modelos propostos, as IES seriam capazes de identificar alunos com maior risco de inadimplência e planejar ações preventivas específicas para este grupo. / [en] As impressive as the growth rate in the number of enrollments in private higher education institutions in recent years is the increase in the related default rate, driven by the deepening economic crisis in Brazil and by the reduction of the number of vacancies offered by the FIES. Default presents itself as a challenge to the financial management of educational institutions, since it impacts their operational costs and ends up being passed on to students in the form of an increase in tuition. In addition, student dropout is also one of the main consequences of default, since students with economic difficulties end up abandoning their courses. Most higher education institutions do not use any type of credit scoring analysis to predict the risk of their students becoming defaulters, failing to understand which factors cause it, and, therefore, refraining from planning preventive actions. Therefore, this study presents a quantitative methodology to predict the default risk of active students. Models generated by machine learning algorithms were analyzed based on a historical database of students who were in or not in default. The results showed a relationship between default and economic, academic and social characteristics of students. Thus, by employing models such as the ones proposed, higher education institutions should be able to identify those students who are at higher risk of defaulting and take specific preventive actions to prevent such an outcome.