Ethical transnational corporate activity at home and abroad: A proposal for reforming continuous disclosure obligations in Australia and the United States

Multinational Corporations establish operations in states with lower legal and ethical standards in areas including the environment, wages, labor standards, human rights, corruption, and company taxation. Corporate law scholars cannot be indifferent to the horrific consequences of these lax standards. From contributing to rapes and violent incidents stemming from trade in conflict minerals in the Congo to the killing of workers due to poor conditions in garment manufacturing units in Bangladesh, multinational corporations exploit conditions in developing countries abroad without disclosing their actions at home. We advance a normative argument to clarify and strengthen the existing model of disclosure-based regulation to hold MNCs accountable. We argue that, since the core expectations held by shareholders of companies are the same whether they are operating within our borders or externally, a harmonization of disclosure obligations imposed by law would be a more flexible and less costly solution. We posit that a broader reading of the disclosure obligations of companies under existing legislation like the Reg. S-K in the United States, the continuous disclosure rules under * Dean and Professor of Law, University of Newcastle Law School. Sandeep Gopalan would like to thank Terrie Troxel, Jack Tatom, Professor Bill Wilhelm, and the Networks Financial Institute at Indiana State University College of Business for their valuable support in conducting research for this article. We are also grateful to Audrey Son, Bassam Khawaja, and the editorial staff of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review for their excellent editorial work. ** Solicitor and doctoral candidate, University of Newcastle Law School. 2 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [46.2:1 the Australian Corporations Act 2001, and listing rules such as those adopted by the Australian Securities Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange would require the disclosure of material corporate practices outside our national borders.

Constructive activism in the dark web: cryptomarkets and illicit drugs in the digital ‘demimonde’

This paper explores activism enacted through Silk Road, a nowdefunct cryptomarket where illicit drugs were sold in the darkweb. Drawing on a digital ethnography of Silk Road, we developthe notion of constructive activism to extend the lexicon ofconcepts available to discuss forms of online activism. Monitoringof the cryptomarket took place between June 2011 and its closurein October 2013. Just before and after the closure of themarketplace we conducted anonymous online interviews with 17people who reported buying drugs on Silk Road (1.0). Theseinterviews were conducted synchronously and interactivelythrough encrypted instant messaging. Participants discussedharnessing and developing the technological tools needed toaccess Silk Road and engage within the Silk Road community. Forparticipants Silk Road was not just a market for trading drugs: itfacilitated a shared experience of personal freedom within alibertarian philosophical framework, where open discussionsabout stigmatized behaviours were encouraged and supported.Tensions between public activism against drug prohibition andthe need to hide one’s identity as a drug user from public scrutinywere partially resolved through community actions thatinternalized these politics, rather than engaging in forms of onlineactivism that are intended to have real-world political effects.Most aptly described through van de Sande’s (2015) concept ofprefigurative politics, they sought to transform their values intobuilt environments that were designed to socially engineer amore permissive digital reality, which we refer to as constructiveactivism.

Benefits of group foraging depend on prey type in a small marine predator, the Little Penguin

Group foraging provides predators with advantages in over-powering prey larger than themselves or in aggregating small prey for efficient exploitation. For group-living predatory species, cooperative hunting strategies provide inclusive fitness benefits. However, for colonial-breeding predators, the benefit pay-offs of group foraging are less clear due to the potential for intra-specific competition. We used animal-borne cameras to determine the prey types, hunting strategies, and success of little penguins (Eudyptula minor), a small, colonial breeding air-breathing marine predator that has recently been shown to display extensive at-sea foraging associations with conspecifics. Regardless of prey type, little penguins had a higher probability of associating with conspecifics when hunting prey that were aggregated than when prey were solitary. In addition, success was greater when individuals hunted schooling rather than solitary prey. Surprisingly, however, success on schooling prey was similar or greater when individuals hunted on their own than when with conspecifics. These findings suggest individuals may be trading-off the energetic gains of solitary hunting for an increased probability of detecting prey within a spatially and temporally variable prey field by associating with conspecifics.

Latency reduction and market quality: the case of the Australian Stock Exchange

This study investigates the role of latency in market quality in the Australia Securities Exchange following the introduction of the Integrated Trading Platform (ITS) and ASXTrade. We find that the reduction in system latency from 70. ms to 30. ms (ITS) improved liquidity. However, the lower latency has not had a long-lasting downward effect on spreads, as there was no discernible reduction in trading costs when institutional traders already had access to lower-latency co-locations. We contribute to the literature by reporting that low latency improves market liquidity, but privileged participants that have access to trading information prior to others may induce greater information asymmetry and adverse selection.