Instytucja osobowości prawnej w okresie PRL jako narzędzie ograniczania autonomii jednostek przez państwo autorytarne

The purpose of this paper was to analyze how the regulation of legal personality by positive law affected the rights and freedoms of individuals in the period of the Polish People’s Republic. The possession of legal personality leads to the empowerment of an organization and facilitates it by pooling resources to achieve a certain goal. Having legal personality also gives an entity a certain autonomy vis-à-vis other entities, including its members and the state. The analysis has shown that in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, positive law was deliberately used to limit the possibility of creating entities with their own legal personality. The formal concept of a legal person was used instrumentally as a tool to impede the possibility of building an organization outside state control. It also led to a structurally incorrect and practically questionable recognition of the judicial capacity of entities that did not have legal personality. In addition, using the concept of an economic unit in the area of economy, a functional criterion was adopted to determine the participants of economic turnover, which also broke with the traditionally adopted in this respect approach based on legal personality. This led some of the representatives of civil law doctrine at that time to consider the institution of legal personality as useless, which testified to the fact that the legal environment and the applied mechanisms typical of an authoritarian state suppressed any autonomy and independence of interest underlying a separate legal personality.

In search of opportunities for development of microinsurance by drawing on the experience of previous generations

Motivation: Notwithstanding the 30 years of the market economy, the Polish insurance market still reveals an exceptionally low level of penetration rates and insurance density. Attempts should be made to reduce the protection gap by introducing and popularising microinsurance products. Aim: The research aims to establish whether there exists a need for microinsurance products in Poland and whether there are conditions for its development, which groups it should target and what methods and institutions can reduce the protection gap. Results: Data analysis demonstrated that in Poland the lowest use of insurance coverage to manage risk occurs in the lowest income households, comprising groups of people with relatively low education: disability pensioners, farmers and workers. This results in lack of or limited access to insurance. Looking for a way to counteract this phenomenon, I suggest introducing and popularising microinsurance products targeting towards the above-mentioned groups. However, the use of remote microinsurance distribution channels may prove highly ineffective. Considering the above and the lack of trust in entities operating in the insurance market, it is recommended to create a legal environment enabling the inclusion of institutions and organisations acceptable to and enjoying the trust of these circles in processes involving marketing, distribution and, partially, the servicing of microinsurance. These players should consist of civic organisations, such as volunteer fire brigades, rural housewives’ clubs, activist organisations from religious communities, as well as those set up for mutual protection, e.g., relief and loan funds and savings and loan funds. A separate group targeted by microinsurance should consist of people who are young, open to new trends and interested in obtaining insurance coverage for a limited time, e.g., for the short period when they use a means of personal transport or other rented equipment, for which coverage can be obtained and paid for quickly and without undue formalities.

Maritime Concessions in Italy

The paper deals with the treatment – both legislative and judicial – of maritime concessions in Italy. It first analyses legal provisions regarding the term of duration of such concessions and then focuses on some recent sentences. The first of them could have made stronger the conflict between the Italian legal environment and EU one, as the legislative automatic prorogation of concessions was deemed to be legitimate. Luckily, further rulings stated that this legislative statute is not in line with EU law and so has to be non applied. The Council of State solved the question very recently: not only Italian legal discipline was sentenced not to be in line with the EU law, but also some guidelines were given to step out the impasse. Judicial review so proved out to be once again the key element to grant rule of law, even when relationships between different legal environments are concerned.

Selected factors of internationalisation and their impact on the SME perception of the market risk

Research background: Internationalisation of entrepreneurial activities provides an ample opportunity for the growth and sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). When making their business activities international, SMEs are facing various obstacles. Investigating the key factors of internationalisation and their impact on SME decision making constitutes a key factor of the research work. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of selected factors of SME internationalisation on the positive perception of the market risk. Higher export costs, differences in legal environment, taxes, and linguistic and cultural differences were set to be the significant factors influencing the positive perception of the market risk. Bearing the main purpose in mind, the Visegrad Four (V4 ? Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) were examined. Methods: The questionnaire in mother tongue of each country in online and paper form was used. The questionnaire consists of 77 questions divided into several sections. Likert five-point scale was used to allow the respondents to express their opinion. In total, 1585 responses were completed. A regression analysis was used to verify the statistical significance of the independent variables and to quantify the causal relationships (determining the direction and strength of the effect) on the dependent variable. As the variables are of one metric, a linear regression model (LRM) was selected to validate the hypothesis. Findings & value added: The internationalisation of SME activities brings along many risks and barriers that SMEs need to overcome if they want to enter international markets. Many SMEs consider the barriers and restrictions to enter foreign markets to be severe. Therefore, they decide to do their business domestically. It was established in the research that only 30.2% of the respondents expanded their business activities internationally. The biggest impact on the positive assessment of the market risk was found to have linguistic and cultural differences. They do not have a negative effect on the positive perception of the market risk, so they do not hinder SMEs in their international expansion. The second most important was the factor of the export costs. The factor of possible increased costs is quite important for SMEs in making their decisions whether to expand internationally or not. This factor also shapes a positive approach to assessing the market risk by SMEs. In the research, SMEs confirmed that potential higher costs do not represent a major barrier for them in shaping their attitudes towards the market risk. The remaining factors being analysed, namely differences in legal environment and taxes, did not have a significant impact on the positive assessment of the market risk internationally. The practical implications can be found in new information about market risk in process of internationalisation provided from four selected countries.

Capital Account Liberalization and Firm Innovation: Worldwide Evidence

This study investigates whether capital account liberalization, a leading characteristic of globalization, is associated with firms’ future innovation output. Employing a novel firm-level panel data set covering 41 countries over two decades, we show that capital account liberalization is significantly associated with higher corporate patenting activities, particularly for firms from innovation-intensive industries. Further analyses show that the effect is stronger among firms from economies in a better legal environment, signifying the important role of good institutional quality in facilitating the positive impact of liberalization. The effect is also stronger among firms with higher initial productivity, consistent with the “productivity” hypothesis, according to which bigger and more productive firms generate more innovation after liberalization. Our findings are robust to the use of various measurements, subsamples, and estimation models. This study provides global firm-level evidence of the real economic impact of financial globalization.

Contracting Forensic DNA Experts by the Defense in Hungarian Criminal Procedure

Most of the studies published in Hungary on the judicial expert system and expert evidence in criminal proceedings do not deal with the question whether the availability of forensic DNA experts is adequate for the defense. This paper examines the current legal environment and focuses on this question. The study also gives a brief overview of the circumstances when DNA analysis plays an essential role in criminal cases. Finally, the article will show whether the defense can employ its own forensic DNA expert in criminal cases.

Digitization of Civil Legal Proceedings in the Russian Federation

This work is an analysis of legal trends in the administration of justice and the judicial system of the Russian Federation. Among the main trends, the authors observe an increase in the number of civil cases considered on the merits by both commercial courts and general jurisdiction courts. The authors also analyze some opportunities for increasing the level of integration of digital technologies in the legal environment of the Russian Federation. One of the triggers capable of catalyzing this process is the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the transformations in the administration of justice that require online court trials using the Internet are analyzed, and some foreign experience in implementing such a format of court trials is considered. The authors also assess in this article the impact of judicial reforms in 2019 on the dynamics of the administration of justice.

Visualizing international studies on cyberspace sovereignty: concept, rationality, and legitimacy

This study visualizes the international cyberspace sovereignty studies collected in Web of Science Core Collection to construct knowledge bases, development status, and dynamic trends drawing on scientometric method by instrument CiteSpace (5.7.R5). The findings show that the international studies on cyberspace sovereignty have phased and interdisciplinary characteristics. Its research theories, perspectives, and methods will be affected by practical and legal environment in the international contexts. Additionally, this study discusses its rationality to gain the concept through temporal evolution, spatial variation, and linguistic rank; explores its legitimacy through existing necessity, Common Law of Nature spirit and Positive Law foundation; and finally puts forward its implementation path. Furthermore, the logical basis and jurisprudential basis have established the status of cyberspace sovereignty in international law.

Open source intelligence

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has gained importance in more fields of application than just in intelligence agencies. This paper provides an overview of the fundamental methods used to conduct OSINT investigations and presents different use cases where OSINT techniques are applied. Different models of the information cycle applied to OSINT are addressed. Additionally, the terms data, information, and intelligence are explained and correlated with the intelligence cycle. A classification system for entities during OSINT investigations is introduced. By presenting the capabilities of modern search engines, techniques for research within social networks and for penetration tests, the fundamental methods used for information gathering are explained. Furthermore, possible countermeasures to protect one’s privacy against the misuse of openly available information as well as the legal environment in Germany, and the ethical perspective are discussed.

Legal environment and corporate finance: evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry

Considering the Italian manufacturing industry between 2014 and 2016 (more than 250,000 observations), this technical note analyzes the relation between the courts’ ability to enforce credit rights and the opportunity to finance business activities with trade credits instead of financial debts, delaying payments and decreasing the financial costs. According to our results, and considering mortgage foreclosure, if the time necessary to settle an insolvency case increases by 1000 days, we can expect an increase in operating debt between 3 and 11%, and a decrease of financial expenses between 3000 and 7000 Euro.