Theory and recent empirical literature suggest that social and professional connections may influence corporate policy. However, inference may be biased by the possibility that firms who share peers also share unobserved characteristics that are correlated with observed policy. Using a novel...

This paper is a comparative study of the Bhopal Gas Leak Case and the Exxon Mobile Case. It focuses on negligence and the compensation aspect of the entire ordeal which manifested as one of the most debated legal concerns in contemporary times

What do parent companies owe to individuals that are directly affected by the business conduct of a foreign subsidiary? In corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and sustainability reports parent companies of multinational enterprises respond to that question. They emphasize their...

Firms that do not have enough assets to cover potential tort liability have a reduced incentive to take safety precautions. Large firms can take advantage of this by compartmentalizing their most dangerous activities into smaller subsidiaries. Under current law it is difficult to reach the...

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Dutch and British private corporations were accused of having aided and abetted in the violation of the human rights of individuals in Nigeria. A lawsuit, however, was brought in the United States, relying on the Alien Tort Statute – part of a Judiciary Act...

In January 2013, the The Hague district court in the Netherlands rendered a groundbreaking verdict in a civil liability suit against Royal Dutch Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary (SPDC). The lawsuit had been brought before it by four Nigerian farmers and the Dutch NGO Milieudefensie, in response...

This Article examines the activities of various multinational enterprises (MNEs) involved in the Prestige oil spill of, 2002. The liability exposure of such enterprises is found to have been minimized by three legal phenomena which result from the current treatment of MNEs under national and...

On 30 January 2013, the The Hague district court rendered a final judgment with respect to a number of civil liability claims against Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) and its Nigerian subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) that had been pursued by four Nigerian farmers and the...

In recent years, a number of international and cross-sectoral initiatives have attempted to respond to the human rights impacts of corporations. Foremost among these is the United Nations’ 2008 “Protect, Respect, and Remedy” Framework and its Guiding Principles on Business and Human...

Western societies are witnessing an emerging socio-legal trend towards transnational civil litigation against multinational corporations in relation to harm caused to people and planet abroad. These 'foreign direct liability cases' arise against the background of a global governance gap...