Information Technology- Security Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Information Technology- Security - Research Paper Example United States, records concerning the use of information indicate that the concept has been fundamental when building the required trust and reliability of the information for consumers. Consequently, the concept has enhanced the availability, integrity, authenticity, confidentiality, and non- repudiation of information as discussed in this piece. An organization defines its information assurance policy as a course of actions pursued to enable organizations to obtain information assurance security. As such, the organizations formulate policies that describe appropriate behaviour concerning the use of information. In the contemporary society, the equipments and processes needed to meet the security requirements assist in the formulation of policies that govern the use of data in research (Herold & Rogers, 2011). Consequently, information assurance limits the risks that the misuses of information pose to organizations. Information assurance policies prioritize information based on the capacity of an organization to disseminate risks. Lastly, the policies concerning the use of information enhance privacy in organizations. The international Facility management association defines facility management as a profession encompassing multiple disciplines that enhances the functionality of the built environment. According ICISA & Park (2009), information assurance helps in making changes to the functional areas of an organization. Customer relation, time management, business continuity and financial awareness are some of the activities that are prone to information insecurities. Therefore, organizations need to monitor their security in order to function effectively. The management should also regulate the transmission of information in its physical form. This guarantees safe storage and usage of information. According to ICISA & Park (2009), quick response to threats changes reduces risks such as obsolescence and misuse of information. Information assurance entails

Consumer behaviour in the ethnic food market Personal Statement

Consumer behaviour in the ethnic food market - Personal Statement Example This kind of liberty has somehow made the process intimidating. Writing a dissertation primarily entails the hard task of simultaneously coming up with a significant design. At the start, I have to let myself be open to every input such as lectures and class discussions, books and articles I read, might as well to journals I encountered. To refrain from losing the important facts and information, I have to put things that interest me into a journal. I've also tried doing some sort of research or survey wherein I have asked elder students and even faculties on what types of topics did they have for dissertation and have let them share their experiences as they come along the process. Their stories have somehow served as my inspiration and a challenge to do my best with such tedious and get fulfilling task. These motivations and the knowledge that my study could be of great contribution and significance in the future researches had kept me going. With my limited knowledge on major scholarly topics that are most important in my field, and having the great topics already used up; I have to do some general reading in the field to come up with a significant and original topic. ... Considering the scope manageability and the significance of the continuously rising Halal market particularly in Tesco retail setting, we have agreed that I should focus on that topic. With the help of my tutor, I manage to have a firm grasp of the facts in my case, and have been dedicated to answer vital "why" and "how" questions within the topic. Trends and outcomes in ethic food marketing, as well as their causes must be dealt with despite their apparent unavailability. Dissertation involves series of intricate process that needs full attention, hard work, and consistency. Coming up with the mere title is rather challenging. The author must come up with a clear, succinct, simple yet fully explanatory and can perfectly reflect the content of the whole document. After long reflection, several rejections and experts advice, I finally came up with the title "Consumer Behavior in the Ethnic Food Market", believing that it will best suit my topic in the clearest and simplest manner. This is then succeeded with review of literature, a considerably long part of the whole paper that supposed to provide the reader with a summary of the current knowledge related to the topic to be studied. I have learned to utilize all great facilities in the universities. After filing some initial paperwork from graduate school, I immediately began with my review of literature. Reading thru all the files I have gathered, I was somewhat disappointed to find out that some of it was actually irrelevant if not far from what I should focus on. I must have been very eager to gather an enormous information by only looking at their titles and carelessly browsing its contents, that I have failed to realize that I those would just take me out of my topic.

Economic Globalisation and Competition

Economic Globalisation and Competition 1. Introduction Competition is a vital mechanism of the market economy and is an efficient means of guaranteeing consumers a level of quality in terms of the value and price of products and services. Economic globalization has increased volatile growth within international trade and as a result in subject of competition law. Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty ‘prohibits agreements between undertakings; decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which prevent restrict or distort competition’. These agreements shall be void according to 81(2). However, the agreements which satisfy the conditions set out in article 81(3) EC shall not be prohibited, no prior decision to that effect being required. 1.1. Anti-Competitive Agreements Article 81 of the EC Treaty, prohibiting anti-competitive agreements, must be considered in relation to all commercial agreements with a probable EU cross-border impact. The Horizontal and the Vertical agreements are the agreements, which are relevant for the purposes of the application of the competition rules. Horizontal agreements are those between undertakings operating at the same level of production or marketing, while vertical agreements are those completed between undertakings operating at different economic levels. Under EC Competition Law, restrains included in vertical agreements are regarded as not as much damaging than those included in horizontal agreements. In Consten and Grundig v Commission the European Court of Justice considered that Article 81(1) EC applies not only to horizontal agreements but also to vertical agreements. The later decisional practice of the Commission on the treatment of vertical arrangements under Art 81(1) and 81(3) EC, and the case law of the Community Courts, have been one of the most controversial and severely criticized aspects of Community competition policy. These agreements are very important for the functioning of the economy. Commercial agreements may be exempted from the application of article 81(1) under article 81(3). 1.2. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation However, there is a ‘safe harbour’ for undertakings: the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation 2790/1999. Safe harbours exist for certain agreements including restrictions providing conditions are met so that agreements falling within the terms of the Regulation are exempt from the application of Article 81(1) EC guaranteeing the enforceability of the agreement and granting protection from antitrust prosecution. Thus, if undertakings wish to be certain that their vertical agreements are in line with EC competition law, they should agree on clauses within the scope of the Regulation. Outside this safe harbour, the European Commission’s Notice Guidelines on Vertical Restraints are a helpful guide for the assessment under Art 81(3) EC and are explaining the application of Regulation 2790/1999 and the Commission’s approach to vertical restraints. The Guidelines on Vertical Restraints sets out the principles for the assessment of vertical agreements under Article 81, including the application of the Regulation to vertical agreements. Article 2(1) of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation gives the definition of vertical agreements and states that Article 81(1) shall not apply to ‘agreements or concerted practices entered into between two or more undertakings each of which operates, for the purposes of the agreement, at a different level of the production or distribution chain, and relating to the conditions under which the parties may purchase, sell or resell certain goods or services’. The Commission adopted the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation on 1999 and the new Block Exemption Regulation is expected in 2010. Modifications might remain quite limited and might concern, especially, the presentation of more certain rules on e-commerce, on internet sales and the treatment of resale price maintenance. 1.3. Scope of Application of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation The objective of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation is to exempt certain categories of vertical agreements that, under certain conditions, may improve economic efficiency within a production or distribution chain and is directed at vertical agreements for the purchase or sale of goods or services. The Regulation covers various vertical agreements and applies to any type of agreement entered into companies, which do not operate at the same level of the production or distribution chain. Agreements are covered by the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation on franchising, selective distribution, exclusive dealing, exclusive purchasing, exclusive supply, and non-genuine agency agreements within the scope of Article 81. An agency agreement falls outside article 81(1) where the agent bears no or only insignificant risks in relation to either of these matters. Article 81(1) does not apply to certain agreements or concerted practices entered into between two or more undertakings. The concept of an undertaking was discussed in Hofner and Elser v Matrocton. It was stated that: â€Å"The concept of an undertaking encompasses every entity engaged in economic activity regardless of the legal status of the entity and the way it is financed†. The definition of competing undertakings in Article 1(b) includes actual or potential suppliers in the same product market. The exclusion may be quite wide and uncertain in application. In Tetra Pack I it was considered that a contract within the terms of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation enjoys exemption from Article 81(1), but not from article 82 unless the Commission withdraws the exemption for the future, with a decision. The Regulation does not apply, however, to vertical agreements to rent and lease agreements, as no sale takes place and to agreements which have as their primary object the licensing of intellectual property rights, nor automobile distribution agreements, nor agreements between competitors, except if they are ancillary to a vertical agreement and facilitate the purchase, sale or resale of the contract goods or services by the buyer and vertical agreements whose subject matter falls within the scope of another block exemption regulation. Also, the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not cover any restrictions or obligations that do not relate to the conditions of purchase, sale and resale. The Regulation does not apply to vertical agreements with a subject matter that falls within the scope of any other Block Exemption Regulation. The application of the Regulation, in certain circumstances, can be withdrawn by a decision of the European Commission, or the national competition authorities. Also, the European Commission can enact a regulation declaring the Regulation usually inapplicable to certain agreements including specific restraints. 1.4. Agreements between Competitors The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not cover vertical agreements that are concluded on a reciprocal basis between competitors. This exclusion may be very broad because it includes both actual and potential competitors, with the latter being defined as companies that would be able and likely to enter the market within one year. Vertical agreements between competitors are covered by the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation if the agreement is non-reciprocal and the buyer has a turnover not exceeding â‚ ¬100 million or the buyer is not a manufacturer of competing goods but only a competitor of the supplier at the distribution level. Also, are covered and where the supplier is a provider of services operating at several levels of trade, while the buyer does not provide competing services at the level of trade where it purchases the contract services. 1.5. Summary Article 81(1) EC prohibits agreements which have anti-competitive effects. By enacting the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation, the Commission has establish ‘safe harbors’ for undertakings, that outline conditions regarding when vertical agreements and concerted practices that have an anti-competitive purpose or results and would be prohibited under article 81(1) might be acceptable because they satisfy the criteria of article 81(3). When an agreement fulfills the conditions set out in the Regulation, the agreement is valid and enforceable. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation is a measure under European Union law that grants an exemption from the application of Article 81. Agreements that meet the conditions set out in the Regulation are considered either not to adversely affect competition on the relevant European market(s) or only to affect competition to a limited degree. It is now time to examine if the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation has worked and whether the Regulation and the vertical Guidelines are need any modification, and, if so, what have to be done. PART I Requirements of the Application of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation contains certain requirements that have to be satisfied before, for the vertical agreement is able to benefit from the Regulation. The market share of the supplier must not exceed 30% (Article 3). Also the agreement must not contain any of the hard-core restrictions (Article 4). Finally, the Regulation contains conditions relating to three certain restrictions (Article 5). 2. The Market Share Cap The Market Share threshold is probably one of the most important provisions of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation. In Article 3(1) is stated that ‘the market share held by the supplier does not exceed 30% of the relevant market on which it sells the contract goods or services’. Also, Article 3(2) states that ‘in the case of vertical agreements containing exclusive supply obligations, the exemption provided for in Article 2 shall apply on condition that the market share held by the buyer does not exceed 30% of the relevant market on which it purchases the contract goods or services’. In Telenor/Canal+/Canal Digital the 30% rule prevented the application of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation. The market share threshold is aimed to reduce regulatory burdens from those businesses that, according to Bishop and Ridyard, ‘could not behave anti-competitively even if they tried’. The introducing of a market share cap was one the most hotly contested aspects of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation. Businesses and its lawyers argued that such a rule would be unworkable, since it is so difficult to establish market shares with any degree of precision, particularly in rapidly developing markets. However, the Commission insisted that there was no better means of ensuring that the benefit of the Block Exemption, did not go to firms with too much market power, and the market share cap stayed, albeit in the form of a single threshold of 30%, rather that two of 20% and of 40% which had been proposed in an earlier draft. If the market share of the parties exceeds the 10% threshold described in the De Minimis Notice, Article 81(1) EC will normally not apply to the agreement if the product is new or if the existing product is sold for the first time on a different geographic market. One factor which may have assisted the Commission in prevailing was the fact that while discussions on the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation were going on, it published its white paper on procedural modernization in the application of articles 81 and 82 EC, which proposed the abolition of the notification system altogether. This may have led some to feel less strongly about the content of the Regulation. 2.1. Calculating the Market Share In order to calculate the market share there must be identified the manufactured goods and geographic markets. Regarding market definition, the general rules apply. On the relevant market, the supplier calculates its market share by comparing its turnover achieved on that market with the total value of sales on that market. However, the benefit of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation will, subject to certain conditions, not always be lost if the market share exceeds the 30% threshold. In Rewe/Meinl the European Commission considered that a supplier is in a situation of â€Å"economic dependence† when the buyer accounts for over a 22% market share and thus buyer power might distort competition. John De Gregorio, European counsel for consumer goods manufacturer Kimberly-Clark Corporation, has stated: ‘With the introduction of market share thresholds to the block exemption analysis, it’s more important than ever for in-house counsel to know how the Commission and European courts may define the â€Å"relevant market† for the goods that your company manufactures and sells, and to be comfortable with the definition your company adopts’. 2.2. The De Minimis Doctrine and Agreements of Minor Importance In addition to the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation and the Guidelines the Commission has issued a series of notices, called ‘Notices on agreements of minor importance’ which give guidance on the agreements which will escape Article 81(1), because the market share of each or both of the parties to the agreement is too small. The European Commission’s de minimis Notice states that no Article 81 subjects are raised by an agreement between undertakings where in vertical agreements the market share of each party to the agreement does not exceed 15% of the relevant market, or 5% for vertical agreements where access to the relevant market is foreclosed by the increasing effect of parallel networks of vertical agreements by several companies. The ‘de minimis’ notice sets the relevant threshold at 5% for horizontal agreements. Commercial agreements between parties where market shares exceed these thresholds might however not have a considerable effect on competition or might benefit from exemption. Nevertheless, the presumption in the de minimis Notice will not apply if the commercial agreement contains hardcore restrictions. In Franz Volk v Establissments Vervaecke SPRL the 0.6% of market share in washing machines considered insignificant. In general, agreements taken between Small and Medium size Enterprisers are ‘de minimis’. Paragraph 3 of the Notice recognizes that agreements between small and medium-sized undertakings are rarely capable of appreciably affecting trade between Member States. Finally, Article 8 provides that the Commission can withdraw the benefit of Block Exemption where ‘50 % of a relevant market, contain specific restraints relating to that market. This Regulation shall not become applicable earlier than six months following its adoption’. 2.3. Market Power The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation states that, with some certain exceptions, all vertical restrains are acceptable unless they are coupled to significant market power. Market share thresholds are criticized to be uncertain because they need a definition of the market which is the reason why the idea of market share thresholds has been discarded in most systems. Also, the amount of market power can be considered by reference to market share. Scherer and Ross state that economic analysis shows that in most cases the welfare-reducing effects of vertical restrains depend on the degree of market power the involved firms have. If market shares are in general indicative of potential market power, they can never be considered without considering some other factors to achieve a reasonable assessment of market power for instance the barriers to entry and prospective competition and the characteristics of the oligopolistic dealings between businesses. The Commission in some of its judgments show that market shares do not equal market power. For example, in Alcatel-Telectra the Commission cleared a merger which gave the parties market shares of 83%. Also, in Rhone-Poulenc/SNIA the high degree of concentration was ought to weighed by the existence of rapid technology development. The most obvious issue, according to Professor Denis Waelbroeck, is to consider whether the system should not allow all vertical agreements which do not include hardcore restrictions, separately of the market share of the parties involved, and only apply a control under Article 82 EC in cases of dominance. That would remove the burden above the threshold for businesses to achieve a complex evaluation of their agreements under Article 81(1) and Article 81(3) EC and it will provide more legal certainty in this subject. In addition, the economic assessment required by the Guidelines on Vertical Restrains and the Guidelines on the application of Article 81(3) of the Treaty is challenging, and it is doubtful that many judges and parties will have the income or abilities to undertake it sufficiently, thus raising the danger of extensive, expensive and uncertain litigation. 2.4. Arguments about the Threshold The use of market shares as a key element of the Regulation’s treatment has been criticised as being possible to lead to uncertainty and unpredictability given the difficulties in defining the relevant market and market share. It may be argued that the threshold is too low or that it is improperly cast. Those who argue that the threshold is too low point out that the anti-competitive risks can arise only when there is a dominant firm. A non-dominant firm cannot increase rivals costs and cannot make damage to the consumers as they still benefit from inter-brand competition. Those who argue that the threshold is improperly cast would agree with the above criticism but bear in mind that anti-competitive effects can manifest themselves when there is the risk of oligopolistic interdependence. Bishop. and Ridyard state that an assessment of the market’s concentration would be more useful than the assessment of one players market share. Some argue that given the uncertainties over market definition, a market share threshold is not a substitute for a detailed analysis of whether the consumers suffer consequently of a particular practice but this might damage the effectiveness of the existing system which creates a safe harbour so that analytical incomes are allocated to those cases where anticompetitive effects are most possible to occur. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation creation of a market share threshold which the Regulation does not apply, limits manufacturing businesses that manufacture extremely innovative goods and want to sell them before other businesses have the chance to promote competitive goods into the market. In this situation, the manufacturing businesses with the extremely innovative goods might have a very high market share in a particular industry within a specific geographic area as no competing goods exist. However, as its market share is more than 30%, the manufacturing business is unable to take benefit from the Regulation and would be banned from effectively distributing and selling its manufactured goods in the market. 2.5. Removing the Threshold The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation is unduly restrictive by setting the threshold at 30%. Many agreements thus escape the safe harbour though they are completely harmless from a competition law perspective. By removing the thresholds the sellers using private resellers may be penalised not as much as vertically integrate businesses. Also, abolishing the threshold would give more stability to the system because not all restrictions of competition under 81 are an abuse under 82. On the other hand, if the system is seen as too essential one may think a less radical change to the Regulation consisting of a differentiated approach identifying those clauses which can be problematic above 30% although the parties are not dominant. Those clauses which are always straightforward, even in cases of dominance and which thus essentially deserve an exemption and should not to be matter to any market share threshold and also those clauses which should never advantage from a group exemption even they are below 30%. 2.6. Summary The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation can simplify issues but also can cause difficulties. It makes issues simple as it offers the parties more flexibility in establishing their agreements and if a business’s market share is less than the related market share threshold the agreement will fall outside the scope of the competition rules or be qualified for exemption provided that it does not include hardcore restrictions. The Regulation can also cause difficulties as the parties’ market share must be verified in every case and this can be very hard in situations, for instance as those concerning new markets. Where the market share threshold is exceeded, issues become more difficult as the Regulation requires a complete evaluation of the agreement to define whether it would restrict competition under Article 81(1) and, if so, whether it would meet the requirements for an exemption under Article 81(3). This requires the parties to verify the economic effect of certain restrictions by considering how they would operate in the specific product market involved. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation principally proposes that businesses with small market shares are given more choice to establish their agreements and will not require undertaking an antitrust review of their dealings. Businesses with large market shares might need to spend time and resources to assessing their agreements from an antitrust perspective. 3. The Hard-Core Restrictions The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not apply to vertical agreements that have certain anti-competitive objects. The Regulation lists a number of hard-core restrictions that, if included in the agreement, prevent the safe harbour from applying and cause the exclusion of the whole agreement from the benefit of the Block Exemption even if the market share of the supplier or buyer is below 30%. There are hard-core restrictions which apply to agreements between competitors, and agreements between non competitors. If one hard-core restriction is present in the agreement, the agreement will lose the benefit of the block exemption so Article 81(1) EC may apply. This can result in the unenforceability of the entire agreement and may even lead to fines and it is important that a severability or invalidity clause is included in the agreement where appropriate. Hard-core restrictions are considered to be so serious that they are almost always prohibited. In Javico International and Javico AG v Yves Saint Laurent Parfumes SA it was considered that hard-core restrictions do not infringe Article 81(1) except if they might have considerable effect on trade between Member States. There are five hard-core restrictions which, if there are contained in a vertical agreement, they have the consequence of taking the whole agreement outside the scope of the Regulation. 3.1. Resale Price Maintenance The first hard-core restriction concerns resale price maintenance. Article 4(a) states that the benefit of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not apply to vertical agreements that fix prices and have the object of restricting a buyer’s ability to determine its sale price. A supplier is not allowed to fix or minimum the sale price at which distributors can resell his products. The restriction on the buyer’s power to establish his sale price is a hard-core restriction. The Commission in Yamaha considered that an obligation of a purchaser to resell at a particular price is ‘an obvious restriction of competition that is prohibited by Article 81(1)’. However, Paragraph 47 of the Guidelines states that ‘the provision of a list of price recommendations by the supplier to the buyer is not considered in itself as leading to resale price maintenance’ if they do not amount to a fixed or a minimum sale price. In Pronuptia de Paris v Pronuptia de Paris Irmgard Schillgalis, the Court held that the recommendation of prices would not infringe Article 81(1). In genuine agency agreements, where the principal bears all or almost all the financial and commercial risks related to the transactions concluded on his account by the agent, Article 81(1) would generally not be applicable. In Vlaamse Reisbureaus an agreement between travel agents and tour operators indented to oblige the travel agents to examine the prices and tariffs set by the Tour operators and the agents were banned from sharing commissions with or granting refunds to their customers. The Court held that the Belgium system infringed Article 81(1). From an economic point of view, it can be said that there is no certain analysis nowadays as to how to treat with resale price maintenance. Resale price maintenance can be pro-competitive or anti-competitive. Nevertheless, even when applying an effect based approach, it is obvious that in many cases competition will be delayed and that cases when resale price maintenance is efficient are actually quite rare. 3.1.2. Anti-Competitive and Pro-Competitive Effects in Resale Price Maintenance Resale price maintenance is a complex issue and may be harmful in some circumstances. There are two major anti-competitive effects in relation to resale price maintenance. These are the elimination of intra-brand price competition which has as a direct effect the price increase, and the resulting risk of a reduction in inter-brand competition which gains from increased price transparency, thus make easiest price collusion between manufacturers or distributors at a horizontal level. Other anti-competitive effects of the resale price maintenance, according to Luc Peeperkorn, are the loss of pressure on the seller’s scope and the loss of dynamism and innovation from in particular discounters. However, the doubts about the efficiency of and the likelihood that resale price maintenance leads to positive aspects. Economic theory has shown that this practice might have a number of efficiency benefits. For instance, price fixing may prevent ‘free riding’ by retail price discounters on the pre-sales services and/or reputation of full price dealers while it is obvious that intra-brand price competition will be reduced by imposing a fixed or minimum price. This can be reasonable, for example, where a distribution outlet offers first-class services on which customers then rely to buy at a cheaper discounter which does not provide these services and thus is able to charge lower prices. Free riding arises when one business benefits from the performance of another with no paying for it. A minimum price would remove the pricing advantage from the discounter and change intra-brand price competition with competition on services. Minimum resale price maintenance can thus occasionally be economically and commercially reasonable if certain conditions are fulfilled. One could argue that the ‘free riding’ problem could be solved by using other block exempted restrains achieving the same result. Some inefficiencies and externalities caused by the ‘free riding’ problem might be solved by exclusivity clauses, or selective distribution but this restraint may not be an ideal substitute in all conditions for resale price maintenance and it is then questionable that resale price maintenance should be per se prohibited in all cases. Also, resale price fixing can be useful to entrant manufacturers as it might assist them to position their products and thus retailers would have the incentives to invest in making the entrant’s products better known to consumers. Resale price maintenance has created worries in Commission because is being stand on national limits with different costs in different member states. According to Professor Boscheck, taking into account that the economic conditions to consider such restrains ‘are still either too crude or too costly to apply to allow for efficient rules and structured rule of reason’, it is difficult to argue that fixed or minimum prices should not be part of the hard-core list. On the other hand, it appears that such clauses are not considered as if an exemption were inconceivable in any case. There are reasonable arguments that such restrains, considered under an effects-based approach, can rarely be deemed as pro-competitive. It is still uncertain whether free riding by resale price maintenance to rationalize the exclusion of price competition between dealers or retailers. There are methods, for instance promotional allowances or service requirements, which can avoid ‘free riding’ without the anticompetitive side effect of reducing price competition between dealers and retailers. 3.2. Territorial and Customer Restrictions Article 4(b) states that restricting sales by the buyer into specified territories or to specified customers is a hard-core restriction. Distributors must remain free to decide where and to whom they sell. Paragraph 49 of the Guidelines recognizes two restrictions on buyers that would not be considered as hard-core under 4(b): a prohibition on resale except to certain and users for which there is an ‘objective justification related to the product’, and an obligation on the reseller relating to the display of the supplier’s brand names. There are exceptions to 4(b), such as restriction ‘of active sales into the exclusive territory or to an exclusive customer group reserved by the supplier or allocated by the supplier to another buyer’. The Commission in Souris-Topps held that Topps’s distribution agreements for its Pokemon Stickers and Cards failed to benefit from the Block exemption as they violated Article 4(b). The Paragraph 51 of the Guidelines deals with the Internet. It states that ‘A restriction on the use of the Internet by distributors could only be compatible with the Block Exemption Regulation to the extent that promotion on the Internet or sales over the Internet would lead to active selling into other distributors’ exclusive territories or customer groups’. The Commission in Yves Saint Laurent case held that a prohibition on internet publicity and sale usually constitutes a hard-core restriction. The Commission is awry of deterring the growth of e-commerce, and has confirmed that the use of the internet is not considered a form of active sales as it is a reasonable way of reaching customers. Provisions that restrict the territory into which, or the customers to whom, the buyer might sell the contract goods or services are illegal. There are four exceptions to that rule: (1) The restriction of active sales into the exclusive territory or to an exclusive customer group reserved to the supplier or allocated by the supplier to another buyer, where such a restriction does not limit sales by the customers of the buyer, (2) Restrictions of sales to end-users by a buyer operating at the wholesale level of trade, unless it relates to a selective distribution system. This Principle was established by the Commission in Villeroy Boch, (3) the restriction of sales to unauthorised distributors by the members of a selective distribution system, and (4) the restriction of the buyers ability to sell components, supplied for the purposes of incorporation, to customers who would use them to manufacture the same type of goods as those produced by the supplier. A restriction on active sales might not restrict sales by the consumers of the buyer. Thus, a seller can not prohibit his consumers to sell his goods or services on-line without an objective reason and he also can not reserve such sales to himself and/or advertising over the internet. The Vertical Guidelines contain definitions of the terms ‘active sales’ and ‘passive sales’. ‘Active sales’ are defined in paragraph 50 of the Guidelines and it means actively approaching individual customers inside another distributor’s exclusive territory or exclusive consumer group while ‘passive sales’ means responding to unsolicit Economic Globalisation and Competition Economic Globalisation and Competition 1. Introduction Competition is a vital mechanism of the market economy and is an efficient means of guaranteeing consumers a level of quality in terms of the value and price of products and services. Economic globalization has increased volatile growth within international trade and as a result in subject of competition law. Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty ‘prohibits agreements between undertakings; decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which prevent restrict or distort competition’. These agreements shall be void according to 81(2). However, the agreements which satisfy the conditions set out in article 81(3) EC shall not be prohibited, no prior decision to that effect being required. 1.1. Anti-Competitive Agreements Article 81 of the EC Treaty, prohibiting anti-competitive agreements, must be considered in relation to all commercial agreements with a probable EU cross-border impact. The Horizontal and the Vertical agreements are the agreements, which are relevant for the purposes of the application of the competition rules. Horizontal agreements are those between undertakings operating at the same level of production or marketing, while vertical agreements are those completed between undertakings operating at different economic levels. Under EC Competition Law, restrains included in vertical agreements are regarded as not as much damaging than those included in horizontal agreements. In Consten and Grundig v Commission the European Court of Justice considered that Article 81(1) EC applies not only to horizontal agreements but also to vertical agreements. The later decisional practice of the Commission on the treatment of vertical arrangements under Art 81(1) and 81(3) EC, and the case law of the Community Courts, have been one of the most controversial and severely criticized aspects of Community competition policy. These agreements are very important for the functioning of the economy. Commercial agreements may be exempted from the application of article 81(1) under article 81(3). 1.2. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation However, there is a ‘safe harbour’ for undertakings: the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation 2790/1999. Safe harbours exist for certain agreements including restrictions providing conditions are met so that agreements falling within the terms of the Regulation are exempt from the application of Article 81(1) EC guaranteeing the enforceability of the agreement and granting protection from antitrust prosecution. Thus, if undertakings wish to be certain that their vertical agreements are in line with EC competition law, they should agree on clauses within the scope of the Regulation. Outside this safe harbour, the European Commission’s Notice Guidelines on Vertical Restraints are a helpful guide for the assessment under Art 81(3) EC and are explaining the application of Regulation 2790/1999 and the Commission’s approach to vertical restraints. The Guidelines on Vertical Restraints sets out the principles for the assessment of vertical agreements under Article 81, including the application of the Regulation to vertical agreements. Article 2(1) of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation gives the definition of vertical agreements and states that Article 81(1) shall not apply to ‘agreements or concerted practices entered into between two or more undertakings each of which operates, for the purposes of the agreement, at a different level of the production or distribution chain, and relating to the conditions under which the parties may purchase, sell or resell certain goods or services’. The Commission adopted the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation on 1999 and the new Block Exemption Regulation is expected in 2010. Modifications might remain quite limited and might concern, especially, the presentation of more certain rules on e-commerce, on internet sales and the treatment of resale price maintenance. 1.3. Scope of Application of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation The objective of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation is to exempt certain categories of vertical agreements that, under certain conditions, may improve economic efficiency within a production or distribution chain and is directed at vertical agreements for the purchase or sale of goods or services. The Regulation covers various vertical agreements and applies to any type of agreement entered into companies, which do not operate at the same level of the production or distribution chain. Agreements are covered by the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation on franchising, selective distribution, exclusive dealing, exclusive purchasing, exclusive supply, and non-genuine agency agreements within the scope of Article 81. An agency agreement falls outside article 81(1) where the agent bears no or only insignificant risks in relation to either of these matters. Article 81(1) does not apply to certain agreements or concerted practices entered into between two or more undertakings. The concept of an undertaking was discussed in Hofner and Elser v Matrocton. It was stated that: â€Å"The concept of an undertaking encompasses every entity engaged in economic activity regardless of the legal status of the entity and the way it is financed†. The definition of competing undertakings in Article 1(b) includes actual or potential suppliers in the same product market. The exclusion may be quite wide and uncertain in application. In Tetra Pack I it was considered that a contract within the terms of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation enjoys exemption from Article 81(1), but not from article 82 unless the Commission withdraws the exemption for the future, with a decision. The Regulation does not apply, however, to vertical agreements to rent and lease agreements, as no sale takes place and to agreements which have as their primary object the licensing of intellectual property rights, nor automobile distribution agreements, nor agreements between competitors, except if they are ancillary to a vertical agreement and facilitate the purchase, sale or resale of the contract goods or services by the buyer and vertical agreements whose subject matter falls within the scope of another block exemption regulation. Also, the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not cover any restrictions or obligations that do not relate to the conditions of purchase, sale and resale. The Regulation does not apply to vertical agreements with a subject matter that falls within the scope of any other Block Exemption Regulation. The application of the Regulation, in certain circumstances, can be withdrawn by a decision of the European Commission, or the national competition authorities. Also, the European Commission can enact a regulation declaring the Regulation usually inapplicable to certain agreements including specific restraints. 1.4. Agreements between Competitors The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not cover vertical agreements that are concluded on a reciprocal basis between competitors. This exclusion may be very broad because it includes both actual and potential competitors, with the latter being defined as companies that would be able and likely to enter the market within one year. Vertical agreements between competitors are covered by the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation if the agreement is non-reciprocal and the buyer has a turnover not exceeding â‚ ¬100 million or the buyer is not a manufacturer of competing goods but only a competitor of the supplier at the distribution level. Also, are covered and where the supplier is a provider of services operating at several levels of trade, while the buyer does not provide competing services at the level of trade where it purchases the contract services. 1.5. Summary Article 81(1) EC prohibits agreements which have anti-competitive effects. By enacting the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation, the Commission has establish ‘safe harbors’ for undertakings, that outline conditions regarding when vertical agreements and concerted practices that have an anti-competitive purpose or results and would be prohibited under article 81(1) might be acceptable because they satisfy the criteria of article 81(3). When an agreement fulfills the conditions set out in the Regulation, the agreement is valid and enforceable. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation is a measure under European Union law that grants an exemption from the application of Article 81. Agreements that meet the conditions set out in the Regulation are considered either not to adversely affect competition on the relevant European market(s) or only to affect competition to a limited degree. It is now time to examine if the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation has worked and whether the Regulation and the vertical Guidelines are need any modification, and, if so, what have to be done. PART I Requirements of the Application of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation contains certain requirements that have to be satisfied before, for the vertical agreement is able to benefit from the Regulation. The market share of the supplier must not exceed 30% (Article 3). Also the agreement must not contain any of the hard-core restrictions (Article 4). Finally, the Regulation contains conditions relating to three certain restrictions (Article 5). 2. The Market Share Cap The Market Share threshold is probably one of the most important provisions of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation. In Article 3(1) is stated that ‘the market share held by the supplier does not exceed 30% of the relevant market on which it sells the contract goods or services’. Also, Article 3(2) states that ‘in the case of vertical agreements containing exclusive supply obligations, the exemption provided for in Article 2 shall apply on condition that the market share held by the buyer does not exceed 30% of the relevant market on which it purchases the contract goods or services’. In Telenor/Canal+/Canal Digital the 30% rule prevented the application of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation. The market share threshold is aimed to reduce regulatory burdens from those businesses that, according to Bishop and Ridyard, ‘could not behave anti-competitively even if they tried’. The introducing of a market share cap was one the most hotly contested aspects of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation. Businesses and its lawyers argued that such a rule would be unworkable, since it is so difficult to establish market shares with any degree of precision, particularly in rapidly developing markets. However, the Commission insisted that there was no better means of ensuring that the benefit of the Block Exemption, did not go to firms with too much market power, and the market share cap stayed, albeit in the form of a single threshold of 30%, rather that two of 20% and of 40% which had been proposed in an earlier draft. If the market share of the parties exceeds the 10% threshold described in the De Minimis Notice, Article 81(1) EC will normally not apply to the agreement if the product is new or if the existing product is sold for the first time on a different geographic market. One factor which may have assisted the Commission in prevailing was the fact that while discussions on the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation were going on, it published its white paper on procedural modernization in the application of articles 81 and 82 EC, which proposed the abolition of the notification system altogether. This may have led some to feel less strongly about the content of the Regulation. 2.1. Calculating the Market Share In order to calculate the market share there must be identified the manufactured goods and geographic markets. Regarding market definition, the general rules apply. On the relevant market, the supplier calculates its market share by comparing its turnover achieved on that market with the total value of sales on that market. However, the benefit of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation will, subject to certain conditions, not always be lost if the market share exceeds the 30% threshold. In Rewe/Meinl the European Commission considered that a supplier is in a situation of â€Å"economic dependence† when the buyer accounts for over a 22% market share and thus buyer power might distort competition. John De Gregorio, European counsel for consumer goods manufacturer Kimberly-Clark Corporation, has stated: ‘With the introduction of market share thresholds to the block exemption analysis, it’s more important than ever for in-house counsel to know how the Commission and European courts may define the â€Å"relevant market† for the goods that your company manufactures and sells, and to be comfortable with the definition your company adopts’. 2.2. The De Minimis Doctrine and Agreements of Minor Importance In addition to the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation and the Guidelines the Commission has issued a series of notices, called ‘Notices on agreements of minor importance’ which give guidance on the agreements which will escape Article 81(1), because the market share of each or both of the parties to the agreement is too small. The European Commission’s de minimis Notice states that no Article 81 subjects are raised by an agreement between undertakings where in vertical agreements the market share of each party to the agreement does not exceed 15% of the relevant market, or 5% for vertical agreements where access to the relevant market is foreclosed by the increasing effect of parallel networks of vertical agreements by several companies. The ‘de minimis’ notice sets the relevant threshold at 5% for horizontal agreements. Commercial agreements between parties where market shares exceed these thresholds might however not have a considerable effect on competition or might benefit from exemption. Nevertheless, the presumption in the de minimis Notice will not apply if the commercial agreement contains hardcore restrictions. In Franz Volk v Establissments Vervaecke SPRL the 0.6% of market share in washing machines considered insignificant. In general, agreements taken between Small and Medium size Enterprisers are ‘de minimis’. Paragraph 3 of the Notice recognizes that agreements between small and medium-sized undertakings are rarely capable of appreciably affecting trade between Member States. Finally, Article 8 provides that the Commission can withdraw the benefit of Block Exemption where ‘50 % of a relevant market, contain specific restraints relating to that market. This Regulation shall not become applicable earlier than six months following its adoption’. 2.3. Market Power The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation states that, with some certain exceptions, all vertical restrains are acceptable unless they are coupled to significant market power. Market share thresholds are criticized to be uncertain because they need a definition of the market which is the reason why the idea of market share thresholds has been discarded in most systems. Also, the amount of market power can be considered by reference to market share. Scherer and Ross state that economic analysis shows that in most cases the welfare-reducing effects of vertical restrains depend on the degree of market power the involved firms have. If market shares are in general indicative of potential market power, they can never be considered without considering some other factors to achieve a reasonable assessment of market power for instance the barriers to entry and prospective competition and the characteristics of the oligopolistic dealings between businesses. The Commission in some of its judgments show that market shares do not equal market power. For example, in Alcatel-Telectra the Commission cleared a merger which gave the parties market shares of 83%. Also, in Rhone-Poulenc/SNIA the high degree of concentration was ought to weighed by the existence of rapid technology development. The most obvious issue, according to Professor Denis Waelbroeck, is to consider whether the system should not allow all vertical agreements which do not include hardcore restrictions, separately of the market share of the parties involved, and only apply a control under Article 82 EC in cases of dominance. That would remove the burden above the threshold for businesses to achieve a complex evaluation of their agreements under Article 81(1) and Article 81(3) EC and it will provide more legal certainty in this subject. In addition, the economic assessment required by the Guidelines on Vertical Restrains and the Guidelines on the application of Article 81(3) of the Treaty is challenging, and it is doubtful that many judges and parties will have the income or abilities to undertake it sufficiently, thus raising the danger of extensive, expensive and uncertain litigation. 2.4. Arguments about the Threshold The use of market shares as a key element of the Regulation’s treatment has been criticised as being possible to lead to uncertainty and unpredictability given the difficulties in defining the relevant market and market share. It may be argued that the threshold is too low or that it is improperly cast. Those who argue that the threshold is too low point out that the anti-competitive risks can arise only when there is a dominant firm. A non-dominant firm cannot increase rivals costs and cannot make damage to the consumers as they still benefit from inter-brand competition. Those who argue that the threshold is improperly cast would agree with the above criticism but bear in mind that anti-competitive effects can manifest themselves when there is the risk of oligopolistic interdependence. Bishop. and Ridyard state that an assessment of the market’s concentration would be more useful than the assessment of one players market share. Some argue that given the uncertainties over market definition, a market share threshold is not a substitute for a detailed analysis of whether the consumers suffer consequently of a particular practice but this might damage the effectiveness of the existing system which creates a safe harbour so that analytical incomes are allocated to those cases where anticompetitive effects are most possible to occur. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation creation of a market share threshold which the Regulation does not apply, limits manufacturing businesses that manufacture extremely innovative goods and want to sell them before other businesses have the chance to promote competitive goods into the market. In this situation, the manufacturing businesses with the extremely innovative goods might have a very high market share in a particular industry within a specific geographic area as no competing goods exist. However, as its market share is more than 30%, the manufacturing business is unable to take benefit from the Regulation and would be banned from effectively distributing and selling its manufactured goods in the market. 2.5. Removing the Threshold The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation is unduly restrictive by setting the threshold at 30%. Many agreements thus escape the safe harbour though they are completely harmless from a competition law perspective. By removing the thresholds the sellers using private resellers may be penalised not as much as vertically integrate businesses. Also, abolishing the threshold would give more stability to the system because not all restrictions of competition under 81 are an abuse under 82. On the other hand, if the system is seen as too essential one may think a less radical change to the Regulation consisting of a differentiated approach identifying those clauses which can be problematic above 30% although the parties are not dominant. Those clauses which are always straightforward, even in cases of dominance and which thus essentially deserve an exemption and should not to be matter to any market share threshold and also those clauses which should never advantage from a group exemption even they are below 30%. 2.6. Summary The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation can simplify issues but also can cause difficulties. It makes issues simple as it offers the parties more flexibility in establishing their agreements and if a business’s market share is less than the related market share threshold the agreement will fall outside the scope of the competition rules or be qualified for exemption provided that it does not include hardcore restrictions. The Regulation can also cause difficulties as the parties’ market share must be verified in every case and this can be very hard in situations, for instance as those concerning new markets. Where the market share threshold is exceeded, issues become more difficult as the Regulation requires a complete evaluation of the agreement to define whether it would restrict competition under Article 81(1) and, if so, whether it would meet the requirements for an exemption under Article 81(3). This requires the parties to verify the economic effect of certain restrictions by considering how they would operate in the specific product market involved. The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation principally proposes that businesses with small market shares are given more choice to establish their agreements and will not require undertaking an antitrust review of their dealings. Businesses with large market shares might need to spend time and resources to assessing their agreements from an antitrust perspective. 3. The Hard-Core Restrictions The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not apply to vertical agreements that have certain anti-competitive objects. The Regulation lists a number of hard-core restrictions that, if included in the agreement, prevent the safe harbour from applying and cause the exclusion of the whole agreement from the benefit of the Block Exemption even if the market share of the supplier or buyer is below 30%. There are hard-core restrictions which apply to agreements between competitors, and agreements between non competitors. If one hard-core restriction is present in the agreement, the agreement will lose the benefit of the block exemption so Article 81(1) EC may apply. This can result in the unenforceability of the entire agreement and may even lead to fines and it is important that a severability or invalidity clause is included in the agreement where appropriate. Hard-core restrictions are considered to be so serious that they are almost always prohibited. In Javico International and Javico AG v Yves Saint Laurent Parfumes SA it was considered that hard-core restrictions do not infringe Article 81(1) except if they might have considerable effect on trade between Member States. There are five hard-core restrictions which, if there are contained in a vertical agreement, they have the consequence of taking the whole agreement outside the scope of the Regulation. 3.1. Resale Price Maintenance The first hard-core restriction concerns resale price maintenance. Article 4(a) states that the benefit of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation does not apply to vertical agreements that fix prices and have the object of restricting a buyer’s ability to determine its sale price. A supplier is not allowed to fix or minimum the sale price at which distributors can resell his products. The restriction on the buyer’s power to establish his sale price is a hard-core restriction. The Commission in Yamaha considered that an obligation of a purchaser to resell at a particular price is ‘an obvious restriction of competition that is prohibited by Article 81(1)’. However, Paragraph 47 of the Guidelines states that ‘the provision of a list of price recommendations by the supplier to the buyer is not considered in itself as leading to resale price maintenance’ if they do not amount to a fixed or a minimum sale price. In Pronuptia de Paris v Pronuptia de Paris Irmgard Schillgalis, the Court held that the recommendation of prices would not infringe Article 81(1). In genuine agency agreements, where the principal bears all or almost all the financial and commercial risks related to the transactions concluded on his account by the agent, Article 81(1) would generally not be applicable. In Vlaamse Reisbureaus an agreement between travel agents and tour operators indented to oblige the travel agents to examine the prices and tariffs set by the Tour operators and the agents were banned from sharing commissions with or granting refunds to their customers. The Court held that the Belgium system infringed Article 81(1). From an economic point of view, it can be said that there is no certain analysis nowadays as to how to treat with resale price maintenance. Resale price maintenance can be pro-competitive or anti-competitive. Nevertheless, even when applying an effect based approach, it is obvious that in many cases competition will be delayed and that cases when resale price maintenance is efficient are actually quite rare. 3.1.2. Anti-Competitive and Pro-Competitive Effects in Resale Price Maintenance Resale price maintenance is a complex issue and may be harmful in some circumstances. There are two major anti-competitive effects in relation to resale price maintenance. These are the elimination of intra-brand price competition which has as a direct effect the price increase, and the resulting risk of a reduction in inter-brand competition which gains from increased price transparency, thus make easiest price collusion between manufacturers or distributors at a horizontal level. Other anti-competitive effects of the resale price maintenance, according to Luc Peeperkorn, are the loss of pressure on the seller’s scope and the loss of dynamism and innovation from in particular discounters. However, the doubts about the efficiency of and the likelihood that resale price maintenance leads to positive aspects. Economic theory has shown that this practice might have a number of efficiency benefits. For instance, price fixing may prevent ‘free riding’ by retail price discounters on the pre-sales services and/or reputation of full price dealers while it is obvious that intra-brand price competition will be reduced by imposing a fixed or minimum price. This can be reasonable, for example, where a distribution outlet offers first-class services on which customers then rely to buy at a cheaper discounter which does not provide these services and thus is able to charge lower prices. Free riding arises when one business benefits from the performance of another with no paying for it. A minimum price would remove the pricing advantage from the discounter and change intra-brand price competition with competition on services. Minimum resale price maintenance can thus occasionally be economically and commercially reasonable if certain conditions are fulfilled. One could argue that the ‘free riding’ problem could be solved by using other block exempted restrains achieving the same result. Some inefficiencies and externalities caused by the ‘free riding’ problem might be solved by exclusivity clauses, or selective distribution but this restraint may not be an ideal substitute in all conditions for resale price maintenance and it is then questionable that resale price maintenance should be per se prohibited in all cases. Also, resale price fixing can be useful to entrant manufacturers as it might assist them to position their products and thus retailers would have the incentives to invest in making the entrant’s products better known to consumers. Resale price maintenance has created worries in Commission because is being stand on national limits with different costs in different member states. According to Professor Boscheck, taking into account that the economic conditions to consider such restrains ‘are still either too crude or too costly to apply to allow for efficient rules and structured rule of reason’, it is difficult to argue that fixed or minimum prices should not be part of the hard-core list. On the other hand, it appears that such clauses are not considered as if an exemption were inconceivable in any case. There are reasonable arguments that such restrains, considered under an effects-based approach, can rarely be deemed as pro-competitive. It is still uncertain whether free riding by resale price maintenance to rationalize the exclusion of price competition between dealers or retailers. There are methods, for instance promotional allowances or service requirements, which can avoid ‘free riding’ without the anticompetitive side effect of reducing price competition between dealers and retailers. 3.2. Territorial and Customer Restrictions Article 4(b) states that restricting sales by the buyer into specified territories or to specified customers is a hard-core restriction. Distributors must remain free to decide where and to whom they sell. Paragraph 49 of the Guidelines recognizes two restrictions on buyers that would not be considered as hard-core under 4(b): a prohibition on resale except to certain and users for which there is an ‘objective justification related to the product’, and an obligation on the reseller relating to the display of the supplier’s brand names. There are exceptions to 4(b), such as restriction ‘of active sales into the exclusive territory or to an exclusive customer group reserved by the supplier or allocated by the supplier to another buyer’. The Commission in Souris-Topps held that Topps’s distribution agreements for its Pokemon Stickers and Cards failed to benefit from the Block exemption as they violated Article 4(b). The Paragraph 51 of the Guidelines deals with the Internet. It states that ‘A restriction on the use of the Internet by distributors could only be compatible with the Block Exemption Regulation to the extent that promotion on the Internet or sales over the Internet would lead to active selling into other distributors’ exclusive territories or customer groups’. The Commission in Yves Saint Laurent case held that a prohibition on internet publicity and sale usually constitutes a hard-core restriction. The Commission is awry of deterring the growth of e-commerce, and has confirmed that the use of the internet is not considered a form of active sales as it is a reasonable way of reaching customers. Provisions that restrict the territory into which, or the customers to whom, the buyer might sell the contract goods or services are illegal. There are four exceptions to that rule: (1) The restriction of active sales into the exclusive territory or to an exclusive customer group reserved to the supplier or allocated by the supplier to another buyer, where such a restriction does not limit sales by the customers of the buyer, (2) Restrictions of sales to end-users by a buyer operating at the wholesale level of trade, unless it relates to a selective distribution system. This Principle was established by the Commission in Villeroy Boch, (3) the restriction of sales to unauthorised distributors by the members of a selective distribution system, and (4) the restriction of the buyers ability to sell components, supplied for the purposes of incorporation, to customers who would use them to manufacture the same type of goods as those produced by the supplier. A restriction on active sales might not restrict sales by the consumers of the buyer. Thus, a seller can not prohibit his consumers to sell his goods or services on-line without an objective reason and he also can not reserve such sales to himself and/or advertising over the internet. The Vertical Guidelines contain definitions of the terms ‘active sales’ and ‘passive sales’. ‘Active sales’ are defined in paragraph 50 of the Guidelines and it means actively approaching individual customers inside another distributor’s exclusive territory or exclusive consumer group while ‘passive sales’ means responding to unsolicit

Life :: essays research papers

The methods, discoveries, and conclusions of science, as well as their role in society, have generated endless debates throughout history. There was a time when one could be put to death for believing that the earth was round, or ridiculed for claiming that animal species evolve over time. Today people argue over whether it is ethical and responsible science to transplant organs, to allow a suffering person to die, or to genetically alter foods so that they possess special traits. One particular ferocious debate that emerged from the discoveries of modern day science is the debate over the rights of animals. They are used to test the safety and effectiveness of new drugs before those drugs are given to people to treat illnesses and disease. Animals are used to ensure that the ingredients in the foods we eat are safe for consumer consumption. They are also used to test products like eye shadow, lipstick, shampoo, and contact lens solution, as well as chemicals ranging from lawn ferti lizers to caffeine. There should be a balance in the use of animals for scientific advancements. Although we as a society should never accept needless or cruel inflictions of pain, the potential good to all of humanity that can come from using animals for scientific studies outweighs the harm and suffering it may create. The History: While the debate might seem modern, animal testing and the concept of animal rights have both been around for a very long time. However, over the years, the views of people and society have changed. New ideas about what is and is not acceptable in animal testing have led to new laws and new scientific techniques. Animal testing as it is known today owes its existence to the scientific revolution of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. During this time, as the scientific point of view gained respect and Saunders 2 the technology resulting from it exploded into everyday life, researchers began looking to animals for answers to questions that they couldn’t find anywhere else. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, animal experimentation became increasingly popular among scientists. For the most part, no one considered animal testing to be immoral. However, one English Philosopher named Jeremy Bentham believed differently. As stated in People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) website, â€Å"In 1789, Bentham, referring to animals, asked: The question is not can they reason?

Friabililty Test of Mefenamic Acid Tablets

One of the testing criteria of mechanical strength of tablets tablet friability testing. Tablets must be able to withstand mechanical stresses during their manufacturing, distribution and handling by the end-user. During the process of coating, transportation, packing and processing tablet, tablet will lose some weight. Because of that, the friability test is performed in the pharmaceutical industry to test the tendency of a tablet breaking into smaller pieces during transit.It includes repeatedly dropping a sample of tablets over a fixed time by using friability tester and then checking whether any tablets are broken, and calculate the percentage of loss weight of tablets. A good compressed tablet should not loss more than 1% of its weight. Based on this experiment, after the operation ended, the weight loss of tablets is 0. 0395g which is equivalent to 0. 68% loss from its weight. This means, those tablets are good quality and strong tablets which then can endure the stresses.There are maybe some error during handling the experiment that can lead to incorrect results. After operation ended, the tablets are not fully cleaned from dust which is affect the result. When finished, the samples have to be de-dusted first before weigh again. CONCLUSION The percentage loss of weight of samples is 0. 68%. The samples are good quality tablets because the percentage loss of weight are not more than 1%. 1. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Friability 2. http://www. anabiotec. com/testing/detail/hardness-friability-disintegration

Analysis of Vampire Scene in Chapter 3 Dracula Essay

Freud suggests that fear is â€Å"linked in some way to an earlier emotional response that has been repressed.† In chapter 3 Hawker experiences a great amount of fear when he is attacked by the Brides of Dracula, in a dramatic, highly sexual scene. Hawker’s submission and confusion as to whether he is experiencing pleasure of pain could, to follow Freud’s theory, be linked to a past memory in which he repressed his sexual desires. In the prudent society in which Stoker was writing, the rampant, overt eroticism of the Brides would have been shocking, and in some ways liberating. Stoker writes: â€Å"There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.† The Brides are wholly sexual beings, who are guided solely by their desires, and this need contrasts completely against the typical 19th century men and women- John, Lucy and Mina. This liberation from repression would and did terrify and shock society, making vampires seem more like animals, monsters. Freud wrote about the Superego, Ego and Id, the three parts of the human psyche. The Id is natural, animalistic desires, such as sex and hunger and it is the Ego’s job to ensure that these desires are controlled, in order for a human to live in an ordered society. This links well with the idea that repression leads to fear. Freud also wrote about the ‘uncanny’ which in German translates to ‘unheimlich,’ which means un-homely. The idea of uncanny is that â€Å"within the concept of the homely is the notion of concealment itself,† that where we feel safest may not be that safe at all, and that â€Å"home is a place of secrets.† In Chapter three Harker seeks comfort in a room â€Å"where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars.† He seeks safety and comfort in familiarity, however within the place where he appears to be safest in the castle the Brides of Dracula descend on him. Stoker writes that: â€Å"The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it,† however the Brides have appeared and suddenly the atmosphere changes from that of safety and sleep to sexually charged domination. At the climax of the scene, the vampires are just about to bite Hawker’s neck, and Hawker completely and utterly submits: â€Å"I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.† It is this uninhibited pleasure that Hawker experiences that makes the scene so significant, almost as if his unconscious Id has completely taken over his Superego. The Brides do not think, they act, they are, according to Freud, the complete opposite to how normal human beings think they should behave.

cold war, strategic stability essays

cold war, strategic stability essays During the years of the cold war, the two superpowers sought to create an environment of peace and stability. This was important and very necessary since only a small spark would have been needed to spark a nuclear weapons standoff. Diverse and exclusive acts of stability were accomplished covering a wide range of issues, compromises were negotiated, and both sides verified their trust in keeping the world from war: this multilayered issue is known as strategic stability. In this essay I will attempt to explore the origin and first steps of strategic stability, how technology influenced it, and how effective it was. Strategic stability was the primary tool used by either side to preserve peace. It kept the balance between two superpowers from colliding. To best understand the atrocious and absolute necessity for strategic stability, one ought to consider a situation where stability and balance are lacking. Imagine two opponents who each have some number of missiles. Each of the missiles has some number of warheads. The warheads all target the missiles of the other side. When one side has high probability of being able to destroy all of the missiles of the other side, this situation is unstable. This is true for two reasons. First, the side with the first strike capability might be tempted to strike first in a tense situation, knowing that they have a high probability of destroying the forces of the other side. Second, and more subtle, is thinking of the weaker side. Knowing the stronger side will be tempted to strike first, and knowing that the weaker sides force will likely be destroyed if that happens , the weaker side has an even stronger incentive to strike first, knowing that they have no way to strike second. This situation is brutally unstable and leaves great potential for an escalation. The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1) was signed and put into effect in 1972. Two nations assuring mutual destructio...

Definition of a Post-Industrial Society

Definition of a Post-Industrial Society A post-industrial society is a stage in a societys evolution when the economy shifts from producing and providing goods and products to one that mainly offers services. A manufacturing society is comprised of people working in construction, textiles, mills and production workers whereas, in the service sector, people work as teachers, doctors, lawyers, and retail workers. In a post-industrial society, technology, information, and services are more important than manufacturing actual goods. Post-Industrial Society: Timeline A post-industrial society is born on the heels of an industrialized society during which time goods were mass-produced utilizing machinery. Post-industrialization exists in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and the U.S. was the first country with more than 50 percent of its workers employed in service sector jobs. A post-industrial society not only transforms the economy; it alters society as a whole. Characteristics of Post-Industrial Societies Sociologist Daniel Bell made the term post-industrial popular  in 1973 after discussing the concept in his book The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. He described the following shifts associated with post-industrial societies: Production of goods (like clothing) declines and the production of services (like restaurants)  goes up.Manual labor jobs and blue collar jobs are replaced with technical and professional jobs.Society experiences a shift from focusing on practical knowledge to theoretical knowledge. The latter involves the creation of new, invention solutions.There is a focus on new technologies, how to create and utilize them as well as harness them.New technologies foster the need for new scientific approaches like IT and cybersecurity.Society needs more college graduates with advanced knowledge who can help develop and advance technological change. Post-Industrial Societal Shifts in the U.S. About 15 percent of the labor force (only 18.8 million Americans out of a workforce of 126 million) now works in manufacturing compared to 26 percent 25 years ago.Traditionally, people earned status and gained and privilege in their society through inheritance which could be a family farm or business. Today education is the currency for social mobility, particularly with the proliferation of professional and technical jobs. Entrepreneurship, which is highly valued, generally requires a more advanced education.The concept of capital was, until fairly recently, considered mainly to be financial capital gained through money or land. Human capital is now the more important element in determining the strength of a society. Today, thats evolved into the concept of social capital the extent to which people have access to social networks and subsequent opportunities.Intellectual technology (based on math and linguistics) is at the forefront, utilizing algorithms, software programming, simul ations and models to run new high technology. The infrastructure of a post-industrial society is based on communication whereas the infrastructure of industrial society was transportation.An industrial society features a labor theory based on value, and industry develops proceeds with the creation of labor-saving devices which substitute capital for labor. In a post-industrial society, knowledge is the basis for invention and innovation. It creates added value, increases returns and saves capital.

3 negros

During the reconstruction period, the status of African-Americans in South American society is steadily worsening. Since 1877, the possibility of African-American progress has almost completely disappeared. For African Americans voting rights and political power are lost due to threats such as Lynch. The remaining political and economic interests made during the reconstruction eventually weakened by the laws of the south. By the 20th century, African Americans could hardly get political, social and economic power. If it happens in a small town it will expel the citizens from their house, and it is uncomfortable, it falls behind the back of a very far place in the tobacco patch ... their 3 or 4 blacks are working, I talk to those black people, they say that the clouds are red appearance ... and they emit noises like heavy rain in the distance. In my opinion, Lebanon The reduction of specimens gathered in: Very easy to explain: We are familiar with experience, the influence of the wind , and the strength of the wind - full of damage by the wind called hurricane remaining in our memories In the fresh town, that town, the wind is blown away. Things were shipped for 10 or 20 miles. There are other winds called whirlwinds that have the ability to lift the substance into the air and transport them far away As early as the great era of the United States, the term nobility black was applied to black males who dared to leave the space defined by the white order dominated social order. In order to overcome the white obstacle of the Jim Raven era, Uppity Negroes encountered a violent purpose. Uppity Negroes is fighting for voting rights. Uppity Negros aims to learn and learn to use system rules to transform the system itself. Recently, some serious Uppity Negroes tried to announce the value of Black Lives in Ferguson, Missouri. Calling on this country to achieve its vision is always the mission of Uppity Negro. When a black child reached working age, he found that the US of fered him much less than the whites he offered. The unemployment rate of black adults is twice the white job unemployment rate, but the unemployment rate of black youth is about three times that of white teenager. The annual average income of black men who graduated from the university for four years was only $ 110 higher than white men with only high school diplomas. Blacks occupy 11.5% of the population, but 2% of lawyers and judges, 2% of doctors, 3% of dentists, 1% of engineers and 6% of professors of universities and universities .

Consumer behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Consumer behaviour - Essay Example Currently, many people are concerned with healthy living and healthy eating. Therefore, most will prefer to spend on salads than on fast foods, which are unhealthy. In addition, those who want to obtain their ideal self-image of a slim physique will also make a choice of what to purchase depending on their goals. These will prefer salads due to their nutritional value, and the fact that these are healthy to eat (Solomon, Zaichkowsky & Polegato, 2011). External factors influencing sale of pre-packaged salads include family decision and influence or opinions of groups. Some families have working mothers who do not have sufficient time to spend in the kitchen preparing salads; therefore, pre-packaged salad comes in handy. In addition, most students lack time for the kitchen, so, they will prefer to buy pre-packaged salad as a timesaving strategy. The factor of buying and disposing mainly affects single consumers who cannot buy and prepare salad for a single meal, as most will be disposed, thus going to waste. Therefore, such consumers will buy the pre-packaged salad, which comes in different quantities, and which does not go bad easily when it is left over (Solomon, Zaichkowsky & Polegato, 2011). It is more likely that the sale of pre-packaged salads will continue to grow in the coming years. This is because people are continuously being made aware of healthy eating for better lives. Many people are therefore, drifting from fast foods and processed foods to the more natural foods, including vegetables and fruits. In addition, research shows that most young women are getting an education, therefore, most future mothers will be working mothers, with knowledge in healthy eating, thus these are more likely to purchase pre-packaged vegetables, because of its convenience and health value. To increase the sale of pre-packaged vegetables, the concerned companies need to invest in more advertising. This is to make more consumers

Case 2B Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Case 2B - Assignment Example Despite his success as a retail manager, a prevailing trend could surface that compromises the entire image of the company. That being so, Louie should be made aware of the nature of complaints such that he could implement professional changes based upon customer service and general management imperatives. 3. Louie could make certain changes that would enhance his ability to manage a multicultural environment. Even if his casual personality was unaffected off the job, it might make good business sense to simply change his wording. He could simply practice keeping unnecessary conversation to a minimum and exercise a policy of treating everyone the same as much as possible. 4. Empirical data is enormously helpful in this situation. Having been allowed the insight of customers and employees with respect to perceived insensitivity on Louie’s part, we could simply alert him to what sentiment has arisen and suggest the above course of action as a solution. Over the course of 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks, we could have Emma recollect and evaluate questionnaire and interview data to see if changes are in

A Study on the Effect of De-Selection on Elite Youth Footballers Essay

A Study on the Effect of De-Selection on Elite Youth Footballers - Essay Example The entrants to the scholarship program were from the best players between age 16 and 19. Each of the participants performed two interviews. Each interview averaged a time of sixty minutes. The interviews were conducted in locations of their choice. The interviews did not follow a tight schedule; instead, they were reflexive with provisional themes prepared moments before the interviews. The role of the interviewer was to enable the interviewee to narrate his tale in his own manner. Thus, the interviewer was an active listener. The interviewer stored each interview in an audiotape and transcribed before another interview took place. The interviewer pursued emerging issues in the next interview. After the accumulation of the data, the researchers analyzed it by reading the transcripts with the view of identifying narrative segments and themes in the transcripts. They then followed this with writing analytical memos to provide links to common themes. The researchers followed these iden tical concepts in the next meeting. From the data obtained, the researchers were able to reconstruct the lives of the correspondents before and after their de-selection. The methodology used and justification for its use. ... 572). In the interpretive biography, researchers begin by finding written documents and other records. Some may be of a quantitative nature, but it is relevant if it helps describe a person’s life. Nevertheless, the main material in this research emanates from the numerous interviews the researcher has with the respondent. Of most interest, are events that led to a remarkable change in the respondent’s life. The researcher may want to visit the actual place where the event occurred. After this, the researcher tries to decipher the meaning of those events in the respondent’s life. The researcher may rely on his impression about the event. The interpretive biography method involves the use and acquisition of documents pertaining to a subject’s; personal life, accounts and narratives that elucidate on significant milestones in a person’s life. The central focus of the interpretive biography method is a person’s life experiences (Lewiss-Beck & Br yman 2004, p. 507). The use of the biographical method has its basis on the argument that, those who lived are the only ones who can know their lives. Alternatively, through their representations, which include stories and personal narratives among others. The meaning of these events is only visible in the performances of those who lived those lives. According to Thomas Murray 2003, researchers design biographies to serve several functions. One of the purposes is to preserve a record of a prominent person’s development and contributions. Another purpose is to correct mistaken identities. It can also serve to teach readers lessons through another person’s life or to trace public and private actions of the subject in view of finding

Five pillars in islam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Five pillars in islam - Essay Example To be a true Muslim, it is must to obey and act according to the five pillars of Islam, as mentioned in the Holy Quran revealed upon the last Prophet of God (Allah) Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad preached an integrated universal plan directed to all mankind, in which authority on earth is devolved to mankind with the creation at their disposal to utilise.They are given the tools of learning (inspiration or revelation) and the general guidelines to be used in order to stay on the right course, as well as the freedom to choose. Prophet Muhammad preached by presenting his own life as an example to follow and did nothing beyond the doings of an average Muslim. Holy Quran and Sunnah (teachings of Holy Prophet) in this context is the best example of what he did by setting his own example in this world.Prophet Muhammad's preaching revolves around the central theme that after death every body will be raised at the Day of Judgement and all will be judged by God based on their conduct in this life. No doubt it was Prophet Muhammad's inspirations, which put mankind on a new footing by stressing the use of empirical observations and the use of reason and reflection as the guiding tools for seeking the way of God. The five pillars necessary to be practiced by a Muslim are none other than:1.Shahadat (Kalma Tauheed) – The belief of one and only God; 2. Salat (Prayers) – prayers performed five times a day at regular intervals i.e., dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and night; (Pasquine, March 2002) 3. Siyaam (Fasting) 4. Zakat (Charity) - Charity tax for the poor and disadvantaged; 5. Hajj (pilgrimage) - Obligatory for a Muslim to perform at least once in his lifetime. Shahadat - Tauheed (Confession of one God) In the midst of that milieu which was followed by the then superstitious beliefs, and had been cross-fertilized by all sorts of ideas, right in the centre of the Arabian Peninsula, separated but not isolated, Prophet Muhammad came preaching that there is only One God for all creation, Allah (an assimilated form of Al-ilaah, the god), with no other gods besides Him, accessible to all, with no priesthood as an intermediary, no original sin and no ethnic, tribal or racial overtones. In the Quran we find God addressing human beings in general or the believers, but never 'the Arabs' or 'men' in contradistinction to 'women'. (Hamdiyyah, 2000, p. 26) 'Shahadat' in the form of 'Kalma Tauheed' is the belief that must be declared and uttered by every Muslim, which means that he has acknowledged by his heart and soul that there is no God except "Allah" and Prophet Muhammad is His most beloved and last Prophet. This doctrine is the foremost principle for being a Muslim after which a Muslim follows other doctrines. The oneness of Allah prevents a Muslim from getting into other confusions and diversification which is the cause of uniting the Muslims all over the globe to a single main believe, i.e., Allah is the creator of the universe and all the things within ranging from nature to life. Prophet Muhammad is the last messenger for whom Allah has created the whole universe and He is the one to whom we are onus to worship and none other. Salat (Prayer) The second main pillar of Islam is Salat (Prayer), which is, in fact, one of the earliest and most constantly urged elements of Prophet Muhammad's message. "The word used 'Salat' refers to Arabic word where it refers precisely to liturgical prayer, a public worship of God in the form of audibly uttered words". (Peters, 1994, p. 164) Quran says, Prophet Muhammad advises the Muslims "Do not be loud in your prayer nor speak it softly (as if in secret), but find a way between" (Quran 17: 110) It is the second basic pillar which makes it compulsory for a Muslim to practice his daily five times prayer which is accompanied by particular gestures and postures, as laid down in the teachings of Prophet Muham

Pluto Telecommunication- Organisational Behaviour (People Management & Assignment

Pluto Telecommunication- Organisational Behaviour (People Management & Organisation - Assignment Example The main concern in this context can be recognised to be shortage of proper coordination amid the leaders of top level management and lack of proper planning that could help the company in conducting proper marketing and selling of its products. Thus, with this concern, this particular report is about analysing the problems confronting Pluto and offering valuable suggestions for the resolution of the problems to the company (Martin, 1994). Problem Identification According to the case study, Pluto is being facing crucial problems over a few preceding years. In this regard, one of the problems can be viewed as poor communication. There does not lay any sort of effective communication between the three functional departments of the company which ultimately hampered the performance of the company at large. The overall performance of Pluto got hampered in terms of losing number of orders and also increasing in the complaints of its products by the customers. The main problem which can be seen in accordance with the case study is the cultural difference which is prevailing in the three different operating segments of Pluto. This can be one of the major reasons which eventually results in making inefficient communication between different groups (Martin, 1994). ... between management and employees, whereas, smaller-scale deficiency in communication can occur between the individuals belonging to different functional or operational departments. It is worth mentioning that failure to communicate effectively is often said to be one of the imperative reasons behind raising conflicts in any organisation. Poor communication can create conflict in a number of ways that are apparently visible in this case study. For instance, in accordance with the case, it is clear that the deficiency in proper communication between various operational departments of Pluto has affected the financial position of the company through generating conflicts with the customers in terms of raising severe complaints and losing new orders (Martin, 1994). Analysis Is This an Issue or Problem That Is Concerned With One or Several Aspects? Pluto Telecommunication has been facing challenges while performing its different operational functions. It can be stated that the main reason b ehind the arising challenges is the expansion of the company. It can clearly be seen that there exist lack of proper coordination between the three various functional departments of Pluto. The particular aspect raised several problems like no formulation of proper marketing strategy, need of forming incentive plans by the sales department and non-availability of brochures depicting features of the new products among others. Thus, on the basis of the above discussion, it can be affirmed that the issue concerning shortage of proper coordination or communication is principally concerned with several significant aspects (Martin, 1994). Theories or Concepts Relating to the case study of Pluto, several theories or concepts can be taken into concern that would help in analysing the organisational

A Study on the Effect of De-Selection on Elite Youth Footballers Essay

A Study on the Effect of De-Selection on Elite Youth Footballers - Essay Example The entrants to the scholarship program were from the best players between age 16 and 19. Each of the participants performed two interviews. Each interview averaged a time of sixty minutes. The interviews were conducted in locations of their choice. The interviews did not follow a tight schedule; instead, they were reflexive with provisional themes prepared moments before the interviews. The role of the interviewer was to enable the interviewee to narrate his tale in his own manner. Thus, the interviewer was an active listener. The interviewer stored each interview in an audiotape and transcribed before another interview took place. The interviewer pursued emerging issues in the next interview. After the accumulation of the data, the researchers analyzed it by reading the transcripts with the view of identifying narrative segments and themes in the transcripts. They then followed this with writing analytical memos to provide links to common themes. The researchers followed these iden tical concepts in the next meeting. From the data obtained, the researchers were able to reconstruct the lives of the correspondents before and after their de-selection. The methodology used and justification for its use. ... 572). In the interpretive biography, researchers begin by finding written documents and other records. Some may be of a quantitative nature, but it is relevant if it helps describe a person’s life. Nevertheless, the main material in this research emanates from the numerous interviews the researcher has with the respondent. Of most interest, are events that led to a remarkable change in the respondent’s life. The researcher may want to visit the actual place where the event occurred. After this, the researcher tries to decipher the meaning of those events in the respondent’s life. The researcher may rely on his impression about the event. The interpretive biography method involves the use and acquisition of documents pertaining to a subject’s; personal life, accounts and narratives that elucidate on significant milestones in a person’s life. The central focus of the interpretive biography method is a person’s life experiences (Lewiss-Beck & Br yman 2004, p. 507). The use of the biographical method has its basis on the argument that, those who lived are the only ones who can know their lives. Alternatively, through their representations, which include stories and personal narratives among others. The meaning of these events is only visible in the performances of those who lived those lives. According to Thomas Murray 2003, researchers design biographies to serve several functions. One of the purposes is to preserve a record of a prominent person’s development and contributions. Another purpose is to correct mistaken identities. It can also serve to teach readers lessons through another person’s life or to trace public and private actions of the subject in view of finding