The United States largely relies on a system of arbitration to handle retail consumer financial disputes. This approach has undergone significant challenges in recent years particularly in light of recent abuses of consumer credit arbitration mechanisms. This paper reports on the result of a non-randomized small-n survey which we label the “Financial Dispute Study” aiming at evaluating the relative effectiveness of two major approaches to financial dispute resolution — arbitration and ombudsman services. Nearly a hundred survey questionnaires were distributed to financial dispute resolution practitioners throughout the world. A total of forty-eight arbitrators and ombudsmen from East Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa responded. In the Study the participants were asked how practitioners viewed the level of satisfaction, settlement rate and perceived increase or decrease in the use of the given method of financial dispute resolution — whether arbitration or ombudsman service. This paper analyzes the method-effect, meaning we focus on the effect of the selected method of financial dispute resolution (whether ombudsman or arbitration) on settlement, satisfaction and increase or decrease in use. In doing so, the study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two major approaches that a financial dispute resolution mechanism might adopt. We find no statistically significant evidence that a given method, arbitration or the use of ombudsman process has a large (or any) effect on the settlement rate, level of satisfaction or usage. To the contrary, arbitration and ombudsman group point estimates are generally close to one another. Nevertheless, the data indicate slightly higher levels of settlement and overall increase in use in ombudsman processes worldwide. These findings, combined with feedback from open ended interviews along with structural safeguards against repeat-player advantage integrated into the ombudsman process ensuring that awards are rendered without prejudice to the claimant, suggest that merit may be found in exploring the potential applications and use of ombudsman processes for the resolution of consumer financial disputes. The paper concludes with some limited interpretation of the results.
It is a long debate over whether rule of law is reliable in China, when some Chinese regulations are considered to be decided for political interests rather than the law itself. Furthermore, Chinese court decisions are often criticized for not according with statutes, even though the latter are properly written. The author examines these issues by comparing the legislation reasoning and enforcement of competition law in China, the European Union and the United States, which will not lead to endorsement of or objection to the view that rule of law is properly enforced in China, but it shall be an inevitable responsibility for the Chinese judiciary to demonstrate efforts it has taken.
Equal rights to work between men and women are recognized as fundamental human rights by many international conventions including the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Also, constitutions of many countries recognize equal rights to work as basic constitutional rights. But women all over the world still face numerous kinds of sex discrimination, including direct sex discrimination and indirect sex discrimination, especially in working life. Indirect sex discrimination against women in working life undermines women’s equal rights to work in a covert way, which is just as harmful as direct sex discrimination and should be prohibited by law.
The Qing Dynasty is the last dynasty of all the twelve dynasties in Chinese history. Its family law embodied the Confucian conception of the integration of family, country and the world under heaven. The rule of traditional Chinese society was depicted as “the Rule of Propriety and Music” which had been established by Duke Zhou as an instrumentalist mechanism and refined by the Confucian humanistic value orientation. This rule exhibited the intricate fabric of both family and country in five-types in dressing-service, making the laws and legalities in the Qing Codes and Cases peculiar in marriage, divorce, property inheritance and heir adoption and confirmation with obvious female and juvenile discriminations. Since Confucian ethics was introduced as a remedy to the deficiency in regulation and the stereotypes of mentality in the late Zhou Dynasty, their suggestions on equal and universal moral rights have become apparent in the relative enactments and cases ever since. As a system of social regulation, the Qing Codes and Cases demonstrated validity and stability in all areas of family law as well as in their compromise with Confucian ethics in the solidarity of family, clan, country and world where the right to live and the balance between right and duty had been always prioritized.
Transnational spillovers of systemic risks show that financial regulation is not simply a sovereign power, it also shall be responsible to other states and individuals. Regulatory cooperation is necessary to ensure responsibility. Current arrangements dealing with the financial crisis mainly focus on technical problems, and ignore the accountability mechanism of financial regulation. Such arrangements cannot effectively regulate systemic risks in the long run. This paper argues that accountable financial regulation and its legalization is an essential part of solutions to systemic risks, and suggests the ways to legalize accountable financial regulation.