Initial coin offerings (ICOs): Why do they succeed?

Recent literature has addressed initial coin offering (ICO) projects, which are an innovative form of venture financing through cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology. Many features of ICOs remain unexplored, leaving much room for additional research, including the success factors of ICO projects. We investigate the success of ICO projects, with our main purpose being to identify factors that influence a project’s outcome. Following a literature review, from which several potential variables were collected, we used a database comprising 428 ICO projects in the banking/financial sector to regress several econometric models. We confirmed the impacts of several variables and obtained particularly valuable results concerning project and campaign variables. We confirmed the importance of a well-structured and informative whitepaper. The proximity to certain markets with high availability of financial and human capital is also an important determinant of the success of an ICO. We also confirm the strong dependency on cryptocurrency and the impact of cryptocurrency valuations on the success of a project. Furthermore, we confirm the importance of social media in ICO projects, as well as the importance of human capital characteristics. Our research contributes to the ICO literature by capturing most of the success factors previously identified and testing their impacts based on a large database. The current research contributes to the building of systems theory and signaling theory by adapting their frameworks to the ICO environment. Our results are also important for regulators, as ICOs are mainly unregulated and have vast future potential, and for investors, who can benefit from our analysis and use it in their due diligence.

Achieving Access to Justice in a Business and Human Rights Context

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can contribute to economic prosperity and social development in the countries where they operate. At the same time, their activities may directly or indirectly cause harm to humans and to the environment. However, MNEs are rarely held accountable for their involvement in human rights abuses and environmental damage. In recent years, activists have challenged corporate impunity by introducing innovative claims seeking to hold parent companies directly liable for the harm caused by their group’s activities. They have also strategically used this type of litigation to trigger corporate accountability reforms at international, regional, and national levels. Using national litigation experiences as a starting point and focusing on European civil-law countries, the book evaluates the extent to which litigation against MNEs has been effective in achieving access to justice and corporate accountability. It also considers whether ongoing regulatory developments, such as the adoption of mandatory human rights due diligence norms and the negotiations for a business and human rights treaty, can contribute to the realisation of access to justice and corporate accountability in the future.

Gender Component of Internal Displacement in Ukraine: A Case of Business (In)Capability to Localize Human Rights Impact Assessment

Human rights due diligence (HRDD) has become the buzzword of much of the advocacy and work today around business and human rights.1 It is almost commonplace that companies have the responsibility to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address these adverse human rights impacts as part of their ongoing HRDD processes, in line with the UNGPs.2 The assessment of human rights impacts (HRIA) is a critical step in this process.3

Legitimate Expectations and Fair-and-Equitable-Treatment under the Energy Charter Treaty

A recent tide of ISDS cases in the renewable energy sector has generated a large number of arbitral awards that turn of the notion of legitimate expectations. The Fair and Equitable Treatment Standard (FET) and the notion of legitimate expectations has been highly undetermined in the past. This work contains a comprehensive analysis of the renewable energy awards and the interpretation of the notion of legitimate expectations therein. In particular, it is examined whether arbitral jurisprudence formed a cohesive body of caw-law. The author analyses which aspects with regard to commitment by the states, due diligence of the investors, and level of impact were considered a violation of the FET Standard by recent arbitral tribunals.

Benefits of a Comprehensive Methodology Creating a Well-Structured Business Architecture

This book has reviewed the literature concerning the role of management in business development and several papers on available tools and techniques for research of the business resources and the external factors impacting the organisation, together with tools and techniques used to analyse information systems. A particular note was made of recommendations for seeking out competitive advantage and the omissions and limitations expressed by the authors of the current research and analysis methods. There are arguments for combining specific tools and techniques into a single methodology. This chapter presents the benefits to business managers and development staff for using the methodology and the documentation produced and from having a well-structured business architecture. The advantages of having a holistic view of the organisation and its competitive position concerning the external forces are reviewed in relation to due diligence, transparency and good governance, and risk assessment and planning.

Legal instability in cyberspace and OSCE’s mitigation role

After the international legal community widely endorsed the application of international law to cyberspace, many open questions remain on the concrete interpretation of existing rights and obligations to the cyber realm. In pursuit of its mandate to promote human rights and conflict prevention, the OSCE can play a major role to support operationalization of international law and application of existing principles to cyberspace. This paper examines some key steps in the aftermath of the creation of norms of behavior, and transparency and confidence-building measures. After a brief analysis of the normcreation process, this piece identifies several pressing cybersecurity challenges on the international landscape, and offers suggestions for consolidating the voluntary non-binding norms States agreed upon. Using lessons learned from other domains, the analysis will focus on mechanisms of building further stability and transparency in cyberspace, in particular by reference to the due diligence principle and States’ human rights obligations.

Due diligence na contratação de terceiros

As Due Diligences são mecanismos utilizados para antever riscos que poderão ser gerados quando da contratação de terceiros em uma organização. Por constituir um dos parâmetros para a efetividade de um Programa de Compliance, representa também uma boa prática no âmbito do Sistema de Governança Corporativa das empresas brasileiras.