O incumprimento do contrato de crédito ao consumo pelo consumidor

Consumer relations, established between the Consumer and the Creditor, which carry a consequent inequality of contractual positioning between the parties, have been pushing the legislator to adopt more rigid regulations with regard to lending for the purchase of goods or services of consum issues. In this sense, the Decree-Law 359/91 was approved, meanwhile repealed by the Decree-Law 133/2009, which regulates the consumer credit agreement’s regime in the portuguese legal system. Through this contract, the financier makes available to the consumer a certain amount of money, which the consumer must repay, plus the respective remuneration (interest) and other charges, according to a refund plan agreed by the parties. The consumer will be in delay if he breaches this stipulation. In case of default, the creditor, notwithstanding, can choose to wait for the performance by the debtor, promote the loss of benefit of the term or the termination of the contract. From the outset it would seem that, in one way or another, the financier, by imposing a forced shortening of the contract duration initially agreed, will lose the right to remuneration for the provision of capital agreed, but not verified. Nevertheless, unlike presently, the previous regime allowed the parties to rule otherwise, being permitted to agree to the payment of interest of outstanding installments. On the other hand, in the consumer credit contract the principle of freedom of contractual provision of the parties is strongly mitigated by the special legislation, which prevents the waiver of rights by the consumer, and by the regime of general contractual terms, which restricts the freedom of the financier to stipulate the contractual content freely and the freedom of the consumer to negotiate. For all these reasons, associated with the growing need of credit resource to satisfy their needs of consumption, it is confirm the relevance of legislative intervention on consumers protection in the context of hiring credit.

O incumprimento do contrato de crédito ao consumo pelo consumidor

Consumer relations, established between the Consumer and the Creditor, which carry a consequent inequality of contractual positioning between the parties, have been pushing the legislator to adopt more rigid regulations with regard to lending for the purchase of goods or services of consum issues. In this sense, the Decree-Law 359/91 was approved, meanwhile repealed by the Decree-Law 133/2009, which regulates the consumer credit agreement’s regime in the portuguese legal system. Through this contract, the financier makes available to the consumer a certain amount of money, which the consumer must repay, plus the respective remuneration (interest) and other charges, according to a refund plan agreed by the parties. The consumer will be in delay if he breaches this stipulation. In case of default, the creditor, notwithstanding, can choose to wait for the performance by the debtor, promote the loss of benefit of the term or the termination of the contract. From the outset it would seem that, in one way or another, the financier, by imposing a forced shortening of the contract duration initially agreed, will lose the right to remuneration for the provision of capital agreed, but not verified. Nevertheless, unlike presently, the previous regime allowed the parties to rule otherwise, being permitted to agree to the payment of interest of outstanding installments. On the other hand, in the consumer credit contract the principle of freedom of contractual provision of the parties is strongly mitigated by the special legislation, which prevents the waiver of rights by the consumer, and by the regime of general contractual terms, which restricts the freedom of the financier to stipulate the contractual content freely and the freedom of the consumer to negotiate. For all these reasons, associated with the growing need of credit resource to satisfy their needs of consumption, it is confirm the relevance of legislative intervention on consumers protection in the context of hiring credit.

Electoral observation: Evidence from Mozambique

Electoral fraud is a common problem in young democracies. Election observers constitute one possible remedy. Yet, quantitative evidence of the exact effects of observers is scarce. Data on the random assignment of observers during Mozambique’s 2009 general elections is used to estimate the impact that observers have on ballot fraud. It is shown that the presence of national observers reduces high levels of turnout and manipulation of ballots. The findings contribute to the understanding of the behavior of politicians and have implications for the implementation of observer missions.

On project finance and the first road concession in Portugal

In broad sense, Project Financing1 as a mean of financing large scale infrastructural projects worldwide has had a steady growth in popularity for the last 20 years. This growth has been relatively unscathed from most economic cycles. However in the wake of the 2007 systemic Financial Crisis, Project Financing was also in trouble. The liquidity freeze and credit crunch that ensued affected all parties involved. Traditional Lenders, of this type of financial instrument, locked-in long-term contractual obligations, were severely hit with scarcity of funding compounded by rapidly increasing cost of funding. All the while, Banks were “rescued” by the concerted actions of Central Banks and other Multi-Lateral Agencies around the world but at the same time “stressed” by upcoming regulatory effort (Basel Committee). This impact resulted in specific changes to this type of long-term financing. Changes such as Commercial Banks’ increased risk aversion; pricing increase and maturities decrease of credit facilities; enforcement of Market Disruption Event clauses; partial responsibility for project risk by Multilateral Agencies; and adoption of utility-like availability payments in other industrial sectors such as transportation and even social infrastructure. To the extent possible, this report is then divided in three parts. First, it begins with a more instructional part, touching academic literature (theory) and giving the Banks perspective (practice), but mostly as an overview of Project Finance for awareness’ sake. The renowned Harvard Business School professor – Benjamin Esty, states2 that Project Finance is a “relatively unexplored territory for both empirical and theoretical research” which means that academic research efforts are lagging the practice of Project Finance. Second, the report presents a practical case regarding the first Road Concession in Portugal in 1998 ending with the lessons learned 10 years after Financial Close. Lastly, the report concludes with the analysis of the current trends and changes to the industry post Financial Crisis of the late 2000’s. To achieve this I’ll reference relevant papers, books on the subject, online articles and my own experience in the Project Finance Department at a major Portuguese Investment Bank. Regarding the latter, with the signing of a confidentiality agreement, I’m duly omitting sensitive and proprietary bank information.

A liberalização do mercado energético e o papel das entidades reguladoras

The liberalisation of the energy market goes back to the 1990s, when it was impelled by the European legislator. Since then, three legislative packages, temporarily successive, were approved. Those packages contained the measures to be implemented in order to deepen the internal energy market. Besides the opening up of several national markets to competition, the European legislator aimed the creation of a real internal energy market within the European Union. The unbundling regime was one of the most important steps with respect to the liberalisation process. The introduction of these rules ensured independence to the various market operators. A real and effective right of choice was granted to the consumers so they may choose their electricity and natural gas supplier. Therefore, the activity of comercialisation is subject to competition. However, some activities of the electricity’s and natural gas’ chain of value, namely the activities of transportation and distribution, were kept under regulation rules. Even though it may seem odd, the assignment of important competences and strong powers to a regulatory authority was essential in order to achieve the liberalisation process’ goals. Electricity and natural gas are essential public goods; therefore the market operators are legally bound to public service obligations, such as the security, the universality and the continuity of the supply. The performance of these obligations may become, in some cases, unprofitable for those operators. For such reason, the protection of the consumers’ rights shall only be properly defended if there is a regulatory authority that monitors the behaviour of the operators and sanctions the failure to comply with the public service obligations. Portugal, as a Member State of the European Union, transposed into the national legal order the European directives concerning the liberalisation process. This transposition has caused radical changes to the electricity and natural gas’ national markets. The Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos also suffered various mutations in order to keep up with the regulatory demands regarding the liberalisation process.

O crescimento do sector bancário e a concessão de crédito às empresas : o caso de Angola

Mestrado em Ciências Empresariais

Three essays on bankruptcy risk

Abstract Market prices of corporate bond spreads and of credit default swap (CDS) rates do not match each other. In this paper, we argue that the liquidity premium, the cheapest-to-deliver (CTD) option and actual market segmentation explain the pricing differences. Using the European transaction data from Reuters and Bloomberg, we estimate the liquidity premium that is time- varying and firm-specific. We show that when time-dependent liquidity premiums are considered, corporate bond spreads and CDS rates behave in a much closer way than previous studies have shown. We find that high equity volatility drives pricing differences that can be explained by the CTD option.

Indenture between Jacob Thomas Nottle and George Steel

Indenture of assignment of mortgage between Jacob Thomas Nottle, land agent of Hamilton and George Steel of the Village of Romoka in the County of Middlesex regarding a parcel of land in the village of Romoka composed of Lot no. 17 in Block U. Robert Telfer granted to Ira Spalding these lands and premises subject to payment of principal money and interest (2 copies), June 18, 1874.

Indenture between George and Barbara Steele and Joseph Augustus Woodruff

Indenture of assignment of mortgage between George and Barbara Steele [incorrectly listed as Shute on the first page of the first copy] of the Village of Romoka of the County of Middlesex of the first part and Joseph Augustus Woodruff, sheriff, of St. Catharines whereas a mortgage dated April 7, 1857 in consideration of the same to Robert Telfer who did grant the land to Ira Spalding regarding a parcel of land in the Village of Romoka composed of Lot no. 17 in Block U, June 28, 1876.

Indenture between Archibald McLachlan and Nicol Kingsmill to Florence Louise Thomson

Indenture of assignment of mortgage between Archibald McLachlan of St. Thomas and Nicol Kingsmill of Toronto executors under the Last Will and Testament of Lavinia Day Thomson, late of Glencairn in Niagara Township to Florence Louise Thomson of Toronto. This is in regard to Lots 113, 114 and 115 in the Township of Niagara. This was registered in the Township of Niagara on Jan. 28, 1888 – instrument no. 2342 and instrument no. 2344, Apr. 5, 1887.

Letter to J.G. Cadham

Letter to J.G. Cadham regarding Elizabeth Cudney stating that 10 months interest is due. The writer includes and abstract of title on the land which includes: No. 944 assignment of the mortgage of John Malone to S.D. Woodruff; No. 1207 Deed Jesse O’Dell to S.D. Woodruff; No. 1125 Deed S.D. Woodruff to Ezekiel Cudney; No. 1127 Mortgage Ezekiel Cudney to S.D. Woodruff. “Mr. Ezekiel Cudney died and his family was not able to pay off the mortgage and gave the deed and place to me. The agreement with Elizabeth Cudney shows what her title is and when I am paid the amount due to me in accordance with the agreement the deed will be executed.”, Dec. 9, 1901.

Efficient Priority Rules

We study the assignment of indivisible objects with quotas (houses, jobs, or offices) to a set of agents (students, job applicants, or professors). Each agent receives at most one object and monetary compensations are not possible. We characterize efficient priority rules by efficiency, strategy-proofness, and reallocation-consistency. Such a rule respects an acyclical priority structure and the allocations can be determined using the deferred acceptance algorithm.

AutoFACT: An Automatic Functional Annotation and Classification Tool

Affiliation: Centre Robert-Cedergren de l'Université de Montréal en bio-informatique et génomique & Département de biochimie, Université de Montréal

La fraude et la dématérialisation du crédit documentaire

"Mémoire présenté à la faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de Maîtrise en droit des affaires (LL.M)"

La propriété des créances : approche comparative

"Thèse présentée à la Faculté des études supérieures de l'Université de Montréal en vue de l'obtention du grade de Docteur en Droit (L.L.D.) et à l'Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3"