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Transnational companies have substantive impacts on nature: a hallmark of living in the Anthropocene. Understanding these impacts through company provision of information is a precursor to holding them accountable for nature outcomes. The effect of increasing disclosures (of varying quality) is predicated on 'information governance', an approach that uses disclosure requirements to drive company behaviour. However, its efficacy is not guaranteed. We argue that three conditions are required before disclosures have the possibility to shape nature outcomes, namely: (1) radical traceability that links company actions to outcomes in particular settings; (2) developing organizational routines, tools and approaches that translate strategic intent to on-the-ground behaviour; and (3) mobilizing and aligning financial actors with corporate nature ambitions. While disclosure is key to each of these conditions, its limits must be taken into account and it must be nested in governance approaches that shape action, not just reporting. This article is part of the theme issue 'Bringing nature into decision-making'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a financial risk to companies, and those that disregard this will have to deal with losses due to extreme weather events, new regulations, or the disruption of the supply chain. Companies must disclose climate-related financial implications to enable informed decision-making by investors and other stakeholders. Any indifference or disregard for climate-related disclosures will harm the investors who may trade based on insufficient information and prices of securities that do not account for climate risks. In India, disclosures are mandated for companies under the Companies Act 2013 and various Securities and Exchange Board of India Regulations. This paper will explore the adequacy of the current disclosure regime concerning climate change and argue that, although information regarding climate risks falls within the ambit of the current set of mandated disclosures, it is insufficient. The paper concludes by making a case for mandatory climate disclosures under the Companies Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on physicians' attitudes and ethical considerations surrounding medical aid in dying (MAiD), as revealed by surveys and case studies. Topics discussed include physicians' reluctance to expand eligibility for MAiD, the role of ethics consultations in MAiD-related dilemmas, and the ethical dilemmas faced by physicians when considering participation in MAiD.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) emerged as an endemic health crisis in the United States during the early 1980s. Initially labelled a "gay disease" due to its prevalence among gay men, the spread of HIV led to widespread fear and moral panic, as there was limited medical knowledge on preventing its transmission. While HIV is often associated with Sub-Saharan Africa, this article focuses on Sweden, a pioneering nation that became the first to achieve the remarkable Joint UNAIDS/WHO 90-90-90 continuum in addressing the epidemic. However, despite this significant milestone, the punitive legislation and attitudes prevalent in Sweden have had a counterproductive effect on curbing the virus's spread. Drawing upon a comprehensive triangulation of various data and sources on the evolution of public policy in Sweden, this article argues for the urgent need to reduce stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS. By undertaking further measures to combat stigmatisation, we not only have the potential to prevent the spread of HIV but also significantly enhance the quality of life for individuals living with the virus. An essential step in this journey is to eliminate the legally-enforced mandatory disclosure of one's HIV status, which would mark a tremendous victory for all those affected. With limited evidence to support the effectiveness of criminalisation and penal laws, no longer being viewed as criminals for non-disclosure would be a monumental achievement, positively transforming the lives of people living with HIV and fostering a more inclusive and supportive society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A retraction notice is a formal announcement for the removal of a paper from the literature, which is a weighty matter. Xu et al. (Science and Engineering Ethics, 29(4), 25 2023) reported that 73.7% of retraction notices indexed by the Web of Science (1927–2019) provided no information about institutional investigations that may have led to the retractions, and recommended that Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) retraction guidelines should make it mandatory to disclose institutional investigations leading to retractions in such notices. While this recommendation would add to the transparency of the retraction process, a blanket mandate as such could be potentially problematic. For research misconduct (RM)-positive cases, a mandatory investigative disclosure may be abused by some to deflect responsibility. More importantly, a mandatory disclosure could harm authors and institutions in RM-negative cases (i.e. those stemming from honest errors with no misconduct). I illustrate with case vignettes the potential epistemic injustice and confusion that a mandate for investigation disclosure in retraction notices could incur, and suggest a more nuanced approach to its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the risks and ethical challenges that lawyers face when asked to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) by their clients. It explains that while clients may have valid reasons for requesting NDAs, such as protecting confidential information, it is generally unnecessary for lawyers to sign them. NDAs can potentially conflict with lawyers' duty of confidentiality and their ability to disclose information in certain circumstances. The article also discusses the complications that arise when lawyers are asked to sign NDAs by prospective clients. It recommends that lawyers avoid signing NDAs whenever possible, but if they do choose to sign, they should carefully review the language and consider adding a savings clause to mitigate risks. Ultimately, the safest choice for a lawyer is to avoid signing an NDA altogether. [Extracted from the article]

In the presence of pressing challenges related to climate change, there is a wide range of policy proposals concerning the green transition of companies. Although private companies—especially those in the energy sector—have a significant role in the climate crisis, current strategies focus mainly on public companies. Such a single-minded approach to policymaking could give rise to a phenomenon that we term sustainability arbitrage, whereby activities causing climate change gradually shift from public firms to private ones. This may, in turn, create a world where public firms look relatively green while their private rivals become the main driver of activities contributing to the climate crisis. In this paper, we focus on sustainability arbitrage, its manifestations and possible strategies to overcome this problem. We first discuss if the current sustainability-driven corporate governance mechanisms are effective in curbing the sustainability arbitrage problem. In order to prevent sustainability arbitrage, we argue for extending mandatory climate disclosure rules to private companies. We also analyze responsible divestment/phasing out of carbon-intensive assets by public companies as a complementary strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of formal privacy to protect the confidentiality of responses in the 2020 Decennial Census of Population and Housing has triggered renewed interest and debate over how to measure the disclosure risks and societal benefits of the published data products. We argue that any proposal for quantifying disclosure risk should be based on prespecified, objective criteria. We illustrate this approach to evaluate the absolute disclosure risk framework, the counterfactual framework underlying differential privacy, and prior-to-posterior comparisons. We conclude that satisfying all the desiderata is impossible, but counterfactual comparisons satisfy the most while absolute disclosure risk satisfies the fewest. Furthermore, we explain that many of the criticisms levied against differential privacy would be levied against any technology that is not equivalent to direct, unrestricted access to confidential data. More research is needed, but in the near term, the counterfactual approach appears best-suited for privacy versus utility analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Securities disclosure is a human process. Each year, public companies collectively spend over fifteen million hours producing disclosures that undergird an equities market with tens of trillions in market capitalization. The procedures they follow in doing so affect whether their disclosures contain misstatements or omissions--errors that can cause trading losses for investors, and litigation for issuers. Yet despite the importance of the disclosures that firms produce, the literature says little about how they do it, including whether they are spending too much, too little, or just enough on their disclosure procedures. To fill that gap, this Article uses original surveys and interviews with in-house lawyers and accountants at S&P 1500 companies to give an institutional account of how disclosure is produced and how disclosure procedure affects firms and investors. In short, on a riskadjusted basis, higher-quality procedures are likelier to produce higherquality disclosures. That relationship promises social gains if procedures can be identified as higher-or lower-quality and firms adopt the higherquality options. As a first step toward that promise, this Article compares S&P 1500 firms' procedures and presents tentative evidence of divergence among them. It closes by explaining the need for firms to say more about their procedures in order to generate information that supports market-wide best practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) help the state achieve its social objectives. At the same time, they often depend on the private-sector actors for donations. The different beliefs of public- and private-sector actors regarding which practices are desirable for NPOs can affect the transparency of these organizations. We propose that political ties influence NPOs to comply with state-mandated disclosure requirements, while simultaneously dampening their willingness to voluntarily disclose sensitive information that may jeopardize their legitimacy in the eyes of private-sector stakeholders. The impact of political ties on disclosure is contingent upon two factors. First, market institutions moderate such effects because expectations of public- and private-sector actors may diverge more in freer markets than where the state has inordinate power. Second, financial dependence on the state amplifies both effects as dependence on the state exerts more pressure for compliance whilst making politically connected organizations appear even more questionable in the eyes of the private-sector stakeholders. Leveraging a policy shock that weakened political ties, we found that following the policy shock, charities in China reduced their compliance to state-mandated information disclosure, but increased their voluntary disclosure. The opposing roles of political ties in mandatory versus voluntary disclosure is further supported by a policy capturing study involving private donors in China. This study has important implications for research on political ties and information disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apologies are a means of responding to a medical error. Explanation of information related to the episode often fills a need for the patient and family to feel adequately informed. There are pros and cons related to the apology. The American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association, and the Joint Commission of the Accreditation of Health Care Organization Hospital strongly encourage practitioners to disclose when an error or complication occurs. Apologies can be admissible in the courtroom and much of this is state dependent. An apology will be an integral part of the clinician's armamentarium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the SEC review of tax disclosures in the 10-k filings of family firms in the USA over the period 2004− 2018. Relying on agency theory, we show that family firms are less likely to receive an SEC comment letter that identifies deficiencies or omissions in tax disclosures than non-family firms. We further document that family firms resolve SEC comment letters including tax disclosures in a significantly shorter period of time relative to non-family firms. Additional analysis demonstrates that the number of issues raised in SEC comment letters including tax issues in family firms is significantly less than that in non-family firms. These findings expand the family firm literature by documenting more transparent and compliant tax disclosures in family firms. They also contribute to the literature related to the SEC comment letters by investigating SEC review of tax disclosures. This is important since tax disclosures are mandatory in nature, represent the sole source of public information related to taxes, are used by the IRS to detect tax avoidance, and are becoming increasingly relevant for various stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Conflict of interests (COIs) adversely affect the integrity of science and public health. The role of medical schools in the teaching and management of COIs has been highlighted by the publication of an annual evaluation of American medical schools based on their COIs policies by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA). A deontological charter was adopted by French medical schools in 2018 but its impact on COI comprehension by students and its effects on COI prevention were not evaluated. Methods: A 10-item direct survey was conducted among about 1000 students in Paris-Cité University in order to investigate the respect of the charter regarding COIs both in the medical school and in affiliated teaching hospitals. Results: Cumulative results show a satisfying respect of prevention policies regarding COIs in the medical school and hospitals despite the fact that the existence of the charter and its major aspects were insufficiently known. Disclosure of COIs by teachers was insufficient. Conclusion: This first direct study among students shows better results than expected according to current non-academic surveys. Moreover, this study demonstrates the feasibility of this kind of survey whose repetition should be an appropriate tool to improve the implementation of the charter within medical schools and teaching hospitals, in particular mandatory disclosure of COIs by teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial focuses on the impact of high drug prices in the U.S., driven by monopoly dynamics facilitated through patents and other exclusive marketing rights held by pharmaceutical companies. It explores strategies such as patent thickets and pay-for-delay agreements that contribute to maintaining market control and generating substantial profits. The role of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in addressing these practices, are discussed.

1055, 1056 (2000) ("A franchise is a contractual relationship consisting of three elements: (1) a significant association between the franchisee's business and the franchisor's trademarks; (2) payment of a franchise fee; and (3) the franchisor's right to exercise significant power over, or provide significant assistance to, the franchisee in the operation of its business."); [34] C. Franchising Involves Unequal Bargaining Power of Franchisors and Franchisees and Therefore Carries Within Itself the Seeds of Abuse Decades ago, courts acknowledged the conventional wisdom that franchisors, the parties who owned the trademark and intellectual property and granted the franchise rights, were the better-informed, more sophisticated, often larger, stronger parties in franchisor-franchisee relationships.[35] This wisdom held that, as a result, franchisors often took unfair advantage of their franchisees.[36] To address this imbalance, Congress first enacted the Automobile Dealers' Day in Court Act, prescribing good faith in automobile manufacturer-dealer relationships,[37] and the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act,[38] which regulates petroleum franchisor-franchisee relationships. 709, 713 (2014) (explaining that state legislation and federal rulemaking sought to police franchisor representations and franchisor-franchisee relationships due to reputation of franchisors as dishonest businesspersons looking to swindle investors). POL'Y 305, 325-27 (1996) (discussing the 1979 Arnott decision and noting "despite the compelling reasoning in Arnott, subsequent decisions refused to find an inherent fiduciary duty in franchise relationships" and "most courts refuse to find a fiduciary duty in the franchise relationship"); Anne L. Austin, When Does A Franchisor Become a Fiduciary?. [Extracted from the article]

For example, theCalifornia Consumer Financial Protection Law is an extremelyinfluential legislation.3 New York is very active in theconsumer financial services field through its Department ofFinancial Services.4 Beyond regulation and legislation, manystates are active through attorney general investigations andenforcement. CFPB Actions concerning Attorney Debt Collectors Consumer advocates have argued that the FDCPA carries animplied requirement of meaningful involvement by anyattorney who engages in debt collection activities. Federal Regulation of Professionals Based on UDAAP Federal consumer financial services regulation occursprimarily through the CFPB and the FTC. The consumer financial services sector is subject tosubstantial oversight and statutory regulation at thestate and federal levels. [Extracted from the article]

Biopiracy, largely defined as misappropriation and intellectual property control of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge, has long had profound adverse impacts on the lives of the people and communities in developing countries, including Southeast Asia, one of the global biodiversity hotspots. Given that patents are the main means used in most biopiracy cases to exploit resources and knowledge, this article will discuss its feasibility as the other policy instrument to tackle biopiracy in Southeast Asia and suggest how it should be established and/or improved. For this purpose, this article examines two policy instruments in the patent regime that can be and have been used to address the aforementioned problem: compulsory licensing and the disclosure requirement. Based on the analysis of these two instruments, this article discusses why compulsory licensing is an unlikely means of tackling the problem and suggests how a disclosure requirement can be established or improved to tackle biopiracy in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how mandated information disclosure prior to settlement negotiations influences equilibrium outcomes when the privately informed party may misrepresent its type at a cost. We establish that private information cannot be fully revealed and that a regime without information sharing may outperform a regime with information sharing according to the criteria of expected social costs and fairness considerations. • Analysis of mandated information disclosure prior to settlement negotiations. • Uninformed defendant may require a report from the privately informed plaintiff. • Plaintiffs may misrepresent their type at a cost. • Private information cannot be fully revealed in equilibrium. • Mandated information disclosure induces a full-settlement partition equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses legal issues involving the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure and investing. Other topics include the role of the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in ESG mandates, the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board's (SASB) ESG reporting standards, and the ESG disclosure law.

Author investigates whether firms with institutional ownership limit classification shifting. Classification shifting is new technique of earnings management wherein managers misclassify line items of income statement to present favorable operating performance. Core earnings expectation model (McVay in Account Rev 81:501–531, 2006) is adopted for measuring expense shifting. Regression model is employed to analyze whether ownership structure affects expense classification shifting in Indian Firms. It is found that firms with institutional ownership are engaged in expense misclassification to inflate core earnings of the firms. Investors should be more observant for the ownership structure of the firm. Regulators and Accounting Professional Bodies should provide for more mandatory disclosure in order to eliminate such misclassification practices. Auditors should also look in detail in financial statements for detecting CS activity, which is less likely to be detected as it does not impact bottom-line earnings of the firm. The paper provides the literature on expenses misclassification and presents the evidence that firms with institutional ownership are engaged in classification shifting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporations have come to the realization that numerous benefits can be derived by being socially responsible in the societies they operate. Presently, the argument is not just about being a good corporate citizen but the ability of a business to communicate its social contributions to the stakeholders. Therefore, the present study examines the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) practices by NIFTY 100 companies in the voluntary period of CSRD and the period after the implementation of Section‐135 of the Companies Act, 2013. The annual reports of companies are content analyzed using a CSRD measurement index to calculate disclosure score under six themes of corporate social responsibility, namely community development, human resource, environmental activities, development of rural areas, product and customer relation, and fair business. The percentage of companies making CSRD has been increasing over the period of study. In both periods, environmental activities is the most disclosed CSRD theme followed by human resource. Moreover, the results have shown a significant difference in the CSRD practices of sectors. Overall, companies operating in more sensitive sectors and high visibility sectors engage more in CSRD practices. Lastly, the results also indicate that companies have focused on different CSR themes depending on their sector type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2018, brazilian public companies and mixed capital companies have a legal obligation to annually disclose the Sustainability Report or the Integrated Report as a requirement for transparency. These reports were not regulated in Brazil, but voluntary disclosures follow frameworks developed by international organizations that contain information necessary for their content to meet the quality and content requirements for disclosure. In this context, it is necessary to verify whether the mandatory disclosure of these pieces interferes with the quality of their disclosure when compared to the framework applied in voluntary disclosures. The present study intends to analyze the quality of the mandatory disclosure of the Corporate Responsibility Reports of mixed capital companies in the water and sanitation sector compared to the framework adopted by the voluntary disclosures. The research is descriptive, carried out with a bibliographic and documentary technical procedure, with a qualitative approach, with data collection from the Corporate Reports published through the electronic addresses of mixed capital companies in the water and sanitation sector. The results indicate that these companies have reported their socio-corporate information through the Sustainability Report based on the framework proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The research shows that the legal imposition seems to show positive results in the adoption and development of Sustainability Reports that have evolved in quality over the years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the requirements for influencer marketing in the U.S. and Germany with a particular focus on the disclosure of commercial intent and material connections to sponsors. By analyzing different scenarios, the article shows that in the U.S. and Germany essentially similar rules apply. However, under German law a more complex analysis is required if influencers promote products without receiving any consideration or if they not even promote products but rather themselves to increase the number of followers. For example, the influencer bears the burden of proof that no consideration has been received under German law. In addition, German law does require the disclosure of the concrete purpose (e.g., free product v. consideration received) while U.S. law is less specific in this regard. While the material rules applying might be similar, the enforcement regime is entirely different. The respective U.S. law is enforced by the FDA as a public authority; the German law by private parties. The article compares both approaches and discusses the advantages and disadvantages such as more specific guidance provided by the FDA or private enforcement not being limited by authority resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has tried to assess the level of compliance of disclosure requirements of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 15 "Revenue from Contracts with Customers" by the companies listed under Dhaka Stock Exchange in Bangladesh. For this purpose, a disclosure checklist of 40 mandatory IFRS 15 disclosure rules was prepared. A total of 88 companies under 14 industries were taken as sample based on the convenience sampling method. Data about the disclosure practices were collected from the annual reports of the sampled companies for 2019 and 2020 as the disclosure requirements are effective for the accounting period starting on or after January 1, 2018. It reveals that most of the companies are not fully complying with the IFRS 15 disclosure requirements even if the disclosure is mandatory for the last two years. Although the degree of compliance differs within the industries, the highest level of compliance is found in the telecommunication sector (76%) and the lowest level of compliance is observed in the IT sector (28%). The average compliance is around 50% that indicates a significant non-compliance (remaining 50%) of IFRS 15 requirement. The least complied areas are disclosure related to operating segments, performance obligation in the bill and hold arrangement, nature of goods and services in case of an agent, warranty, and changes in variable estimates. The findings of this study will have policy implications for the regulators. This is the pioneer study that has assessed the compliance level of IFRS 15 disclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the effect of Institutional Isomorphism on mandatory disclosure with Financial Accounting Standards for Entities Without Public Accountability (SAK ETAP). The level of mandatory disclosures, measured by an unweighted of 88 disclosure items. The results of the study on 195 real sector cooperatives showed that the level of mandatory disclosure is 31.4%, the highest is 59.4%, and the lowest is 7.5%. Multiple regression analysis shows that information technology, audit types, and entity size, have a significant effect on Mandatory Disclosure of SAK ETAP, while industry types have an moderat significant effect. The theoretical contribution is to provide insight into the use of mimetic and normative isomorphism in explaining mandatory disclosures, while stakeholders can provide input for considering policy and decision making regarding the implementation of financial reporting based on SAK ETAP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses legal issues on the implementation of the European Union's (EU) Sustainability Related Disclosures in the Financial Services Sector Regulation. The law aims to promote environmental sustainability and advance climate change goals under the Paris Agreement of 2015. Also cited is the importance of the regulation for U.S. financial services firms and securities lawyers involved in the financial and insurance services sectors in the EU.

Worker and consumer protection laws often rely on the regulated entity to notify workers or consumers of their legal rights because it is effective and efficient to provide information at the time and place where it is most likely to be useful. Until the Supreme Court ruled in NIFLA v. Becerra in 2018 that a California law regulating crisis pregnancy centers was an unconstitutional speaker-based, contentdiscriminatory regulation of speech, mandatory disclosure laws were constitutionally uncontroversial economic regulation. Yet, the day after striking down a disclosure law in NIFLA, the Court in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 expanded the right of workers to resist supporting unions, a right that depends on an even more intrusive compelled notice regime than the one the Court struck down in NIFLA. When the Court found a First Amendment right not to disclose on one day and a First Amendment right to receive information based on a system of mandatory disclosure on the next, it revealed that treating disclosure rules as compelled speech inevitably requires the Court to pick sides in fights involving free speech or other rights claims on both sides. This essay argues that compulsory notice or disclosure laws are not constitutionally problematic when and insofar as they require statements of fact or statements of policy that are unambiguously labeled as speech of the government rather than the views of the speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the deficiency of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOP Act) in preventing congressional insider trading, corruption and financial conflicts of interest in the U.S. Topics discussed include the introduction of STOP Act in 2012 to prohibit members of the Congress from trading on nonpublic information, insider trading scandal surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and the code of ethics for government service in relation to insider trading.

The exigent nature of genocide, inherent costs of litigation that may impede ongoing investigations, and general reluctance of tech companies toward international data disclosure underscore the need for states and intergovernmental organizations to enforce more expedient discovery procedures for cases involving crimes against humanity. The discovery case between the Gambia and Facebook illustrates how the current legal framework regulating international data disclosures is ill-equipped to nimbly address the exigence of genocide in Myanmar. Existing bilateral agreements and multilateral treaties overseeing international data disclosure should be amended to compel third-party internet service providers to disclose information in the extreme and exigent case of genocide. Without further changes, efforts to compel third parties will continue to fail. Investigating bodies will continue to depend on narrow exceptions when disclosure aligns with the business interests of internet service providers. Cases investigating genocide will persist in purgatory. Lives will remain hanging in the balance. This Comment will focus on the discovery case between the Gambia and Facebook and its collateral effects on the ongoing investigation into the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. In doing so, this Comment will analyze how American tech giants like Facebook conduct extensive business outside the United States and circumvent foreign regulation and government intervention to the detriment of local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of biomedical research on humans--for example, flu, imaging, and genomic studies--researchers often uncover information about participants that is important to their health and wellbeing. In many cases, the information is not anticipated in advance, and participants did not consent to receiving it. This Article examines the law and policy governing human subjects research, focusing on the set of regulations known as the "Common Rule." I argue that human subjects researchers will often have strong ethical reasons to disclose results even when participants did not consent to the disclosure in advance. I also show how the current regulatory scheme stands in the way of ethical disclosures, putting researchers in a difficult position where they might not be able to fulfill their ethical duties without transgressing legal ones. Although we need to contend with autonomy and welfare risks associated with returning results, not to mention financial and administrative costs, these downsides are similarly present in analogous scenarios where non-consensual warnings are legally permitted and sometimes even required. There does not appear to be any good reason to make a policy exception for biomedical researchers when it comes to issuing warnings in the form of information disclosure. To aid difficult determinations about which results warrant return, I suggest that policymakers should take advantage of the interest and willingness of the bioethics community to develop consensus norms and incorporate these norms into regulations such that the regulations would at least permit researchers to disclose results whenever consensus standards would recommend disclosure. In this way, the law would make space for ethically optimal conduct without necessarily compelling it. At the same time, bioethicists and researchers should train their attention on non-ideal consent settings--the focus of this Article--rather than continuing to assume or hope that participants will have a chance to consent to the disclosure of results in advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is uncontroversial that the Federal Election Commission fails to enforce campaign finance law adequately. This Note contributes to this discussion by analyzing more than four thousand summaries of standard enforcement proceedings to demonstrate the distribution of enforcement at the Federal Election Commission. This analysis indicates that the percentage of internally generated standard enforcement proceedings has declined precipitously, while the number of standard enforcement proceedings initiated each year has remained relatively constant. At present, the agency initiates very few standard enforcement proceedings. Instead, third-party enforcers fill the enforcement void. Third-party enforcers are members of the public that monitor political actors to detect and subsequently enforce campaign finance violations informally and formally. Often, these third-party enforcers are political actors themselves motivated by the pursuit of partisan political gain. Third-party enforcers can enforce serious campaign finance violations because of robust disclosure law and recent technological advancements that have rendered campaign finance information readily accessible to the public for the first time. In light of these changes, this Note evaluates the literature on thirdparty enforcement of campaign finance violations. This Note finds that the highly critical literature overlooks many of the benefits of thirdparty enforcement. While the practice has drawbacks, third-party enforcement is a much more forceful deterrent to potential violators than internally generated enforcement. Consequently, this Note argues that third-party enforcement advances fair federal elections, and the Federal Election Commission should alter its Enforcement Priority System to capitalize on third-party enforcement and improve enforcement at the agency overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whistleblowing and a free press are vital to facilitating public accountability for powerful institutions and thereby improving integrity across the public and private sectors. But when is a whistleblower permitted to disclose information to the media? Once a whistleblower speaks to a journalist, what protections and assurances will they be entitled to? This article addresses these questions by examining existing protections for private and public sector whistleblowers and, relatedly, journalists' confidential sources under federal law. In this way, it explores the intersection between whistleblowing and press freedom and reveals gaps and weaknesses in existing legal frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis began a storied legal tradition of trying to conceptualize privacy. Since that time, privacy's appeal has grown beyond those authors' wildest expectations, but its essence remains elusive. One of the rare points of agreement in boisterous academic privacy debates is that there is no consensus on what privacy means. The modern trend is to embrace the ambiguity. Unable to settle on boundaries, scholars welcome a broad array of interests into an expanding theoretical framework. As a result, privacy is invoked in debates about COVID-19 contact tracing, police body cameras, marriage equality, facial recognition, access to contraception, loud neighbors, telemarketing calls, and on and on. This "pluralistic turn" has made privacy popular, but this popularity comes at a cost. Lacking precision, ubiquitous invocations of privacy tend to cloud rather than clarify, raising the temperature of academic and policy debates while generating little light. This Article proposes a baseline definition of "privacy" to anchor legal discourse. The definition responds to privacy skeptics by identifying a core of pure privacy that can and should be protected. But it also pushes back on privacy pluralists by insisting on the need for precision. In a post-pandemic world, policymakers face powerful temptations to override longstanding privacy protections and countervailing pressures to abandon lifesaving policies in the face of vigorous privacy objections. Precisely identifying what is at stake in these debates can help to clarify the difficult choices that will shape the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores some of legal, evidentiary, security and privacy issues arising from active and passive listening, subsequent recording by digital assistants and similar emerging technologies. Topics discussed include privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, issue of content, and unreasonable searches and seizures. Suggestions are offered to prevent the assistants from going too far and disclosing otherwise protected speech.

Information and data have always been valuable to businesses, but in the Information Age, as businesses have figured out more ways to commoditize the information and data they possess, there has been a corresponding increase in expressed concerns about the unauthorized "disclosure" of information. Often, these concerns are expressed in absolute terms, as if any unauthorized disclosure of information constitutes an act of unfair competition or theft. The problem is that the common understanding of disclosure, particularly among information owners that seek to restrict access to the information they possess, belies the legal meaning of the term as used in various contexts. Sometimes, but not as often as information owners/possessors assert, the disclosure of information will result in the loss of associated rights in the information, but other times it will not. This can happen, for instance, when no legal rights attach to a specified body of information, or when any rights that do attach (like copyrights) continue to exist even if there is a disclosure of the information. Because different areas of information law have developed different meanings of the term disclosure (and related terms, like "publication"), it is important for scholars, courts, and litigants to understand those meanings and use them properly. Otherwise, there is a risk that claims of wrongful disclosure of information will unduly influence policymakers and judges to favor the claims of information owners/possessors over those who are entitled to access and use the subject information. In other words, the limitations that exist on the scope of various information rights should not be overshadowed by the rhetoric of loss and theft when no such loss or theft is possible. This article begins by first illustrating the different ways that the term "disclosure" is used in law, using trade secret law, patent law, and copyright law as case studies. It concludes by setting forth a typology of disclosure that should be used to explain the legal consequences of acts of disclosure for various types of information. Only Type-L disclosures (those that result in the loss of associated information rights) fit the rhetoric of information owners/possessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The criminal disclosure regime in Singapore has come a long way from the 'dark age of disclosure' prior to the disclosure obligations set out in the Criminal Procedure Code and Muhammad bin Kadar v Public Prosecutor [2011] SGCA 32. While cases such as Public Prosecutor v Li Weiming [2014] SGCA 7 and Lee Siew Boon Winston v Public Prosecutor [2015] SGHC 186 have seen some judicial oversight of the disclosure obligations, its extent has remained substantially the same. However, the decision in Muhammad Nabill bin Mohd Fuad v Public Prosecutor [2020] SGCA 25 has fundamentally increased the Prosecution's disclosure obligations. This case note discusses these changes and their impact on the accused and Prosecutors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an age of dark money--the anonymous political spending facilitated by gaps in our campaign finance disclosure laws after Citizens United--the Supreme Court's campaign finance disclosure jurisprudence may be on a collision course with campaign finance disclosure laws. It is urgent for the Court to understand the informational benefits of campaign finance disclosure, so it may avoid this collision. Campaign finance transparency teaches us more than one-dimensional information about the candidate's left- or right-leaning policy preferences. It also helps us learn about candidate type. Social scientists, including myself, have run several studies examining voter learning from campaign finance information. As I explain in this Article, when voters learn about a candidate's position with regard to dark money, they learn and vote differently than if they did not have that information. Experimental and observational research also suggests that voters punish noncompliance and reward overcompliance. In other words, transparency about campaign finance disclosure and compliance informs voters. These findings point to useful policy innovations for states and cities, while the federal government is unable or unwilling to regulate. The innovations I propose include "disclosure disclaimers," which inform voters about the presence of dark money in a campaign, and campaign finance audits, which inform voters about compliance with campaign finance laws. But more basic loophole-closing can also provide helpful information to voters. I explain implications for the courts, campaigns, and policymakers, as well as limitations on the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the empirical incidence of the private and public enforcement of disclosure laws in Australia. Disclosure laws aim to ensure the reduction of information asymmetries and the accuracy of share prices, but their success is predicated on enforcement. In order to assess the enforcement landscape, this article presents two new disclosure law action datasets comprising both private and public enforcement for further examination. In light of these findings, this article addresses the question of whether the Australian system of enforcement is effective, by reference to whether the enforcement actions compensate, deter, and signal. Overall, the empirical analysis confirms the signalling function of enforcement, shows that there is likely to be a reasonable degree of deterrence where directors are targeted, however, that the compensation rationale is not met. This results in a moderately effective enforcement framework with notable room for improvement across both modalities of enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit's ruling in Washington Post v. Mcmanus that invalidated the online campaign advertising disclosure law in Maryland. Topics covered include Maryland's Online Electioneering Transparency and Accountability Act, constitutionalization of collateral censorship as a First Amendment basis for exempting Internet intermediaries from otherwise applicable laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo.