The dramatic growth of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives in the last two decades and the ever-expanding range of financial derivative have triggered concerns as regards investor protection. These concerns have been exacerbated in recent times by phenomenal losses sustained by several large corporations (including municipalities), in the United States, Europe and Asia. This thesis seeks to evaluate the capacity of the existing regulatory framework in Australia to provide protection to participants trading in the OTC derivatives markets. The evaluation is carried out in three parts: first, by identifying the gaps in the Corporations Law regimes, second by determining the extent to which the general criminal and consumer laws are capable of stepping into the breach left open by the Corporations Law and third, by locating the gaps in the supervisory structure by identify the participants who are not subject to any form of supervision by the regulators. The examination conducted in this thesis of the regimes in Chapters 7 and 8 of the Corporations Law reveals a number of gaps in respect of investor protection. Significantly, the OTC derivatives market, which is by far the larger market compared to the on-exchange derivatives market, is generally unregulated by the Corporations Law. Comparative analysis between the sanctions provisions in Chapters 7 and 8 of the Corporations Law and those in the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) and the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) indicated that whilst these latter Acts have the potential to act as a substitute for some of the sanctions provisions in the Corporation Law, about half of the sanctions provisions under the Corporations Law regime has no equivalent provisions in these Acts. In consequence, some regulatory gaps remain. Gaps also occur in the supervisory structure as the surveillance by regulators of market participants is focused along institutional lines. The failure of the law to provide adequate protection to investors trading in the OTC derivatives markets is due primarily to an outdated, inflexible and inappropriate regulatory framework which, when originally constructed, was not intended to regulated the broad spectrum of financial derivatives. This thesis discusses the gaps and deficiencies in the Corporations Law regime and also discusses the recent recommendations made by the Wallis Committee and the Companies and Securities Advisory Committee as well as the proposals of the Treasury in relation to investor protection. It also provides some suggestions for law reform.

<p>Medical devices are becoming more important in the health care sector. One of the major issues for companies developing and producing medical devices is to be updated on the regulatory requirements and implement them in the process. This thesis examines the regulatory requirements for medical devices in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan and compares them with the requirements in the European Union.</p><p>The conclusion of this thesis is that most countries have similar requirements for registration of medical devices and are striving to harmonize with the GHTF guidelines. A company goes far by following the requirements in EU, USA or the GHTF guidelines.</p>

<p>The Capturetheory wants to give an alternative explanation for the need of regulation. From this point if view the government does not have enough information to make an optimal regulation. There is a possibility for different interest groups to take advantage of the political arena by rent- seeking behaviour. An industry may be willing to be regulated to protect itself from competition. The objective of this paper is to account for the pros and cons of the theory of regulatory capture and also if it can be applied to the Swedish market of pharmaceuticals. The theory of regulatory capture is first and foremost a theory of the motives behind regulation. The Swedish market for pharmaceuticals has been analysed by looking into the underlying force of both the pharmaceutical industry and that of the State. There is room for the regulatory agencies to be captured by the industry because of the information provided to them by the industry. The concluding findings show that the Capture theory can applied to the Swedish market for pharmaceuticals.</p>

<p>Background: Risk Management plays an important part of the enterprises strategic business activity. Efficient Risk Management will secure the businesses survival, assets and creates market advantages. The interest of information security has consequently gained in Swedish corporations. Corporations have realized the importance of the information which is stored in the IT systems. IT is the tool for businesses future progress and growth and therefore a source of risks. For managing these risks standards and frameworks are needed. To what extent are information security standards and frameworks used in Swedish organizations? Are information security integrated with operational Risk Management?</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the Risk Management regarding information security in the studied organizations and to recognize the priority of information security.</p><p>Method: The main part of this study is based on case studies including four Swedish organizations, with the purpose to identify the Risk Management regarding information security in these organizations. The study is also added with a complementary survey carried out on Large Cap corporations on the Nordic exchange. The later survey will create a more general apprehension.</p><p>Conclusions: Findings shows that the Swedish organizations have realized the importance of standards and frameworks and the accompanying benefits. The main elements for using standards and frameworks are - better control, identification of business opportunities and gained security. The findings also suggested that the organizations should invest more resources in integrating information security with Risk Management and on the executive management involvement.</p>

<p>This thesis consists of an introduction and three stand-alone essays. In the introduction I discuss the commonalities between the three essays. Essay I charts the the main political cleavages among 59 Swedish unions and business organizations. The main conclusion is that there appear to exist two economic sources of political cleavage: The traded versus the nontraded divide and the labor versus capital divide. Essay II suggests a political rationale for why strikes have been more common in those OECD countries where the legislature is elected in single member districts (e.g. France, Great Britain) than where it was elected by proportional representation (e.g. Sweden, Netherlands). In Essay III I present a theoretical model of political support for different types of labor market regulations. From it I recover two implications: Support for industrial relations legislation that enables unions to bid up wages should be inversely related to the economy's openness, while support for employment protection legislation should be positively related to the size of the unionized sector. Empirical evidence from a cross-section of 70 countries match my theoretical priors.</p>

The objective of this thesis is to develop a conceptual model for classification of real property rights and public regulations. The model is called the Legal Cadastral Domain Model. The model is intended to be a terminological framework for cross-border exchange of cadastral information. Parties exchanging cadastral information via the model do not require detailed knowledge of the legal system in which the right or regulation is created. The model is based on the principle that real property rights and public regulations influence real property ownership by being either beneficial or encumbering for the real property owner. The theoretical departure of the research presented in this thesis is in comparative legal theory and terminology. Real property rights and public regulations are important parts of real property legislation as they describe and secure the use and other exploitation of land, water and air. The research is conducted through studies in real property legislation and associated literature. The model has been developed through case studies on real property rights in Portugal, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden and public regulations in Portugal and Sweden. The generated results show that it seems possible to describe real property rights and public regulations regardless of their legal origin, at least in Western legal systems. The thesis also includes a discussion of terminological aspects concerning definitions of three-dimensional (3D) real property. The thesis consists of a summary and 6 papers. / <p>QC 20120629</p>

The Capturetheory wants to give an alternative explanation for the need of regulation. From this point if view the government does not have enough information to make an optimal regulation. There is a possibility for different interest groups to take advantage of the political arena by rent- seeking behaviour. An industry may be willing to be regulated to protect itself from competition. The objective of this paper is to account for the pros and cons of the theory of regulatory capture and also if it can be applied to the Swedish market of pharmaceuticals. The theory of regulatory capture is first and foremost a theory of the motives behind regulation. The Swedish market for pharmaceuticals has been analysed by looking into the underlying force of both the pharmaceutical industry and that of the State. There is room for the regulatory agencies to be captured by the industry because of the information provided to them by the industry. The concluding findings show that the Capture theory can applied to the Swedish market for pharmaceuticals.

This thesis consists of an introduction and three stand-alone essays. In the introduction I discuss the commonalities between the three essays. Essay I charts the the main political cleavages among 59 Swedish unions and business organizations. The main conclusion is that there appear to exist two economic sources of political cleavage: The traded versus the nontraded divide and the labor versus capital divide. Essay II suggests a political rationale for why strikes have been more common in those OECD countries where the legislature is elected in single member districts (e.g. France, Great Britain) than where it was elected by proportional representation (e.g. Sweden, Netherlands). In Essay III I present a theoretical model of political support for different types of labor market regulations. From it I recover two implications: Support for industrial relations legislation that enables unions to bid up wages should be inversely related to the economy's openness, while support for employment protection legislation should be positively related to the size of the unionized sector. Empirical evidence from a cross-section of 70 countries match my theoretical priors.

Background: Risk Management plays an important part of the enterprises strategic business activity. Efficient Risk Management will secure the businesses survival, assets and creates market advantages. The interest of information security has consequently gained in Swedish corporations. Corporations have realized the importance of the information which is stored in the IT systems. IT is the tool for businesses future progress and growth and therefore a source of risks. For managing these risks standards and frameworks are needed. To what extent are information security standards and frameworks used in Swedish organizations? Are information security integrated with operational Risk Management? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the Risk Management regarding information security in the studied organizations and to recognize the priority of information security. Method: The main part of this study is based on case studies including four Swedish organizations, with the purpose to identify the Risk Management regarding information security in these organizations. The study is also added with a complementary survey carried out on Large Cap corporations on the Nordic exchange. The later survey will create a more general apprehension. Conclusions: Findings shows that the Swedish organizations have realized the importance of standards and frameworks and the accompanying benefits. The main elements for using standards and frameworks are - better control, identification of business opportunities and gained security. The findings also suggested that the organizations should invest more resources in integrating information security with Risk Management and on the executive management involvement.

Sammanfattning Problem och bakgrund: Bokföringsnämnden (BFN) har arbetat fram ett regelverk för de enskilda näringsidkare som bör implementeras från den 1 januari 2007. Syftet anses vara bland annat att underlätta den administrativa bördan. Huvudfrågan som ställs i denna studie är en undran om, till vilken grad har användbarheten av K1 regelverket för de enskilda näringsidkarna förändrat redovisningsarbetet? De andra nyckelfrågorna är, har en effektivisering skett av redovisningsarbetet samt har det lett till väsentliga kostnadsbesparingar vad gäller den administrativa bördan? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka huruvida K1 regelverket har förenklat den administrativa arbetsbördan för enskilda näringsidkare, samt om det skett en effektivisering av arbetet med redovisningen. Metod: Studien tillämpar huvudsakligen den deduktiva forskningsmetoden med hjälp av statistisk datasamling. Detta innebär att studien utgår från en kvantitativ enkätundersökning med ett slumpmässigt urval av respondenter. Referensram: I studiens teoretiska referensram presenteras olika interrelaterade teorier som belyser K1 regelverkets motiv och funktion samt dess betydelse för redovisningen för de enskilda näringsidkarna i ett bredare perspektiv. Slutsats: Studiens syfte var att försöka förklara användbarheten av det nya K1 regelverket i samband med praktiken. Hur K1 regelverket har bidragit till en enklare redovisning och hur den har reducerat de administrativa kostnaderna. Studiens resultat visar att det förenklade årsbokslutet används i väldigt liten skala bland deltagande respondenter i undersökningen. Största orsaken till att K1 regelverket inte används i den utsträckning som förväntats är bristen på information och kunskap hos de enskilda näringsidkarna om K1:s strukturella form och funktion. Då få respondenter använder sig av ett förenklat årsbokslut, blev det svårt att på ett adekvat sätt besvara hur väl det lett till att de administrativa kostnaderna har minskats. / Abstract Problem and background: The Swedish Accounting Standards Board (BFN) has issued a set of standards for small businesses that have been implemented since January the 1st 2007. The purpose of these standards is to facilitate and simply the administrative burden. This study poses the question "To what extent has the usability of the K1 framework for small businesses changed the accounting workload? Has there been a streamlining of the accounting workload and has it led to significant cost savings in terms of administrative burden." Aim of this study: The aim of this study is to investigate whether the K1 framework has simplified the administrative workload for small businesses, and if it has led to a streamlining of the process of accounting. Method: The study applies mostly to the deductive research method with the aid of statistical data collection. This means that the study is based on a quantitative survey of a random sample of respondents.   Frame of references: In the study's theoretical frame of reference various inter-related theories are presented, highlighting the motives behind the K1 framework as well as its functions and its importance to the workload in preparing the financial statements for sole trade businesses in a broader perspective.   Conclusion: The study's main objective was to try to explain the usefulness of the new K1 framework in the context of its use in practice. How the K1 framework contributed to a simpler accounting and how it has reduced the administrative costs. The results of the study show that only a small set of the respondents to the survey use the simplified annual accounts from the K1 framework. The principal reason that the K1 framework is not used to the extent expected, is due to the lack of awareness by the small businesses on the K1 framework's structural form and function. It is evident that more could have been done to widen the knowledge and information on the K1 framework. Given that only a small subset of the respondents use the simplified annual accounts from the K1 framework, it is not adequate to conclude on how well the framework has been used to lessen the administrative costs and burdens.