Volume 7, Issue 1 - Special Issue on AsLEA’s 11th Annual Meeting August 10, 11, 2015 at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand (selected papers)

The purpose of this paper is to test the signal effect of Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance and to analyze the necessity of mandatory disclosure of D&O insurance in Taiwan. D&O insurance is usually viewed as a signal mechanism of insured firms’ corporate governance and thus its mandatory disclosure has been argued. However, there is no complete mandatory disclosure of D&O insurance in the United States and other countries. This issue is not only popular in common law worlds but also sprouting in civil caw jurisdictions such as Taiwan. In the first part of this research, the signal effect of D&O insurance in Taiwan will be empirically tested. The evidence suggests that the information about D&O insurance in Taiwan could statistically and significantly signal the qualities of corporate governance of insured firms. Then, this study addresses the mandatory disclosure of D&O insurance by comparative law and law & economic approaches. This paper compares the regulation about D&O insurance disclosure in the United States, Canada and Taiwan, and find out the reasons affecting the mandatory disclosure of D&O insurance. The Cost and benefit analysis is also applied to discuss whether or not the Canadian mandatory disclosed system should be transplanted. It concludes that the D&O insurance can signal the information of insured firms’ corporate governance, and mandatory disclosure is required and justified. Such interdisciplinary research will provide through recommendations for the Taiwan and other emerging countries in Asia.

In recent years, many of the Asian countries follow suit to implement competition law. Are there any differences with regards to the intention to implement competition law? Are they driven by similar lines of reasoning? Many of the previous research shed light on one or two Asia countries reasons for implementing competition law. Others focus on the US antitrust law or EU competition law only. This paper compares and contrasts the similarities and differences with regards to the major motives in implementing competition laws/antitrust laws. We first used content analysis to categorize the reasons for implementation of competition law. After that, data visualization method is used to study the the reasons mentioned by official websites and academic journals which lead to the implementation of competition laws in different countries.

Retail most favored nation (“RMFN”) clauses are commonly found in vertical agreements inked between downstream e-commerce platform providers and upstream suppliers. Competition authorities in Europe have investigated RMFN clauses in e-commerce markets on grounds that they can foreclose competitors from the market, lead to collusion or soften competition amongst competitors. We present an assessment of RMFN clauses under Singapore’s competition law framework. We find that Singapore’s competition law can adequately deal with collusion and foreclosure concerns. However, the vertical agreement exemption in Singapore’s competition law may prevent the Competition Commission of Singapore (“CCS”) from sanctioning RMFN clauses that soften competition. We conclude from our game theoretic models that the softening of competition Theory of Harm (“TOH”) is unlikely to materialize. Our findings also contribute more generally to competition authorities’ enforcement priorities and tools involving RMFN clauses and the softening of competition TOH.