We examine the motives for and consequences of 5,317 failed and completed cross-border acquisitions constituting $619 billion of total activity that were led by government-controlled acquirers over the period from 1990 to 2008. We benchmark this activity at the aggregate country level and also...

This paper presents a simple model for dual-class stock shares, in which common shareholders receive both public and private cash flows (i.e. dividends and any private benefit of holding voting rights) and preferred shareholders only receive public cash flows (i.e. dividends). The dual-class...

Brahmaputra river basin is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world subject to combined effects of glacier melt, extreme monsoon rainfall and sea level rise. Water is emerging as a new possible irritant between China and India. For India, Water of Brahmaputra constitutes a major lifeline...

China is appraised to have the world's largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental and investment-related issues will likely restrain its scope. China's capacity to successfully face these hurdles and produce commercial shale gas will have a...

The China - Raw Materials dispute recently arbitrated by the WTO opposed China as defendant to the US, the EU and Mexico as claimants on the somewhat unusual issue of export restrictions on natural resources. For the claimants, Chinese export restrictions on various raw materials, of which the...

In the first dispute on renewable energy to come to WTO dispute settlement, the domestic content requirement of Ontario's feed-in tariff was challenged as a discriminatory investment-related measure and as a prohibited import substitution subsidy. The panel and Appellate Body agreed that Canada...

The “Intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) communicated by both developing and developed countries represent a crucial element of the Paris agreement. This paper aims at analysing the INDCs submitted by Parties, through the different tools and approaches proposed by the...

The ownership nationality of large US multinational companies plays an implicit but important role in the current debate over how such companies should be taxed. This paper identifies that role and investigates what is actually known about where these companies’ shareholders reside

The theory of international environmental agreements overwhelmingly assumes that governments engage as unitary agents. Each government makes choices based on benefits and costs that are simple national aggregates, and similarly on a single set of national-level motivations, together drawing a...

Commencing in the 1990s, India signed a number of bilateral investment treaties (BITs), however, after a spate of adverse investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), India has recently denounced all its erstwhile investment treaties. New investment treaties now need to be negotiated on the basis...