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While the Anglo-American and international legal systems adhere to the rule that "a mistake of the law excuses no one," German Schuldtheorie mistake of law doctrine provides for a mistake of law excuse if a defendant's mistaken belief in the lawfulness of his conduct was unavoidable. In a distinct but increasingly overlapping area of law, domestic and international legal systems provide defenses for subordinates acting in obedience to superior orders. At the international level, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court allows defendants charged with war crimes to invoke the defense of superior orders if the command obeyed was not "manifestly unlawful," a standard that has garnered substantial criticism. This Note argues that infusing the Rome Statute's superior orders defense with the Schuldtheorie mistake of law doctrine as codified by Section 17 of the German Criminal Code would address criticisms of Article 33 by reconciling Article 33 with previously established customary international law and produce desirable results by encouraging reasonable, context-specific investigation into the legality of commands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the presence of contagion effects during the Subprime crisis. It presents a test on the non-linearity of the mechanisms spreading shocks that is interpreted with model of long term interdependence. It informs of application of this methodology to the stock market and analyzes that France, Germany, UK and Japan are contaminated by contagion effects.

The article discusses a criminal case before the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, BGH) of Germany, decided on December 20, 2012, which involved fraud in the case of sports betting. The court considered various aspects of the case, including mistakes, liability and damages, and restitution claims.