This chapter samples ads of three types: commercials, classified ads, and the so-called ‘small ads’. Ads can appeal to senses of good value, tradition and authenticity, novelty and popularity. To attract attention, they often employ rhetorical devices such as punning, parallelism, allusions to shared cultural knowledge, and unexpected juxtaposition for humorous effect.

The unconventional approaches Silicon Valley Bank adopted in the early years challenged banking culture. SVB transformed into one of the largest fifteen banks in the United States by serving exclusively tech companies in innovation centers across the nation.1 SVB was the startup, cheerleader, and connector to and for its clients in the tech sector.

This chapter analyses Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies (2009) and David Lachapelle’s Romeo & Juliet (2005) as screen works that appropriate Shakespeare not through the play-text of Romeo and Juliet but instead through its screen history of networked hypertexts. I argue that both films decentre Shakespeare as a source by appropriating Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), rather than the play-text, as a key hypotext. Both Levine and Lachapelle’s works can be discussed from various perspectives of adaptation studies. They are, for example, good examples of genre films – Lachapelle’s Romeo & Juliet, a six-minute film advertising H&M denim jeans, is a commercial advertisement in the form of a music video, whilst Warm Bodies is a romzomcom.

The political theorist and intellectual historian Istvan Hont argued that the term ‘commercial society’ was used by Adam Smith in ways that were distinct from any of his peers. Smith, Hont claims, ‘stretched’ the term in order to ‘make it a theoretical object for moral and political inquiry’. This chapter engages with this argument using computational methods for interrogating datasets of varying sizes.

The first, a custom-produced ‘Adam Smith’ corpus, is compared with a ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ corpus, both of which have been extracted from the larger Eighteenth Century Collections Online dataset. For the second of these datasets, a list of publishers’ names has been collated, from existing scholarly enquiries by Richard B. Sher and Andrew Hook, to construct a dataset that enables one to inspect and interrogate what might be thought of as the distinctively Scottish history of ideas in the period within which Smith wrote his seminal works.

The comparative method allows us to test Hont’s assertion that Smith deployed the concept of ‘commercial society’ idiosyncratically by charting the extent to which the features of Smith’s thinking were adopted by his contemporaries, firstly within the Scottish context, and secondly within anglophone culture of the period as represented by Eighteenth Century Collections Online.

This chapter examines wholesale credit risk models and their validation at US banking institutions. The most common practice in wholesale credit risk modeling for loss estimation among large US banking institutions today is to use expected loss models, typically at the loan level. The chapter discusses the quantification and validation of three key risk parameters in this modeling approach, namely, probability of default (PD), loss given default (LGD), and exposure at default (EAD).

The need to reform international commercial arbitration has to this day timidly–if not hardly–been acknowledged. The authors argue in this contribution that such timid inquiry has in any event been initiated for the wrong reasons. International commercial arbitration should not be reformed merely in response to the ongoing legitimacy crisis of international investment arbitration. To the contrary, time is ripe for a discussion about the general need for reform of international arbitration, as it has become the quasi-exclusive forum selected for the settlement of investment but also international commercial disputes. The disputing parties’ fundamental role in consenting to arbitration cannot exonerate any type of international arbitration from an inquiry as to the greater need for transparency and consistency of the arbitral decision-making process as well as accountability of arbitrators. Acknowledging the need for reform, however, does not imply submitting all types of arbitral dispute resolution to the Procrustean ISDS reform bed. Enhancing international commercial arbitration’s legitimacy inevitably requires tailor-made reform.

Commercial parties engaged in international transactions will typically resist agreeing to submit disputes to their counterparty’s national court system due to the real or perceived ‘home court advantage’. While international arbitration solves the problem with respect to the dispute on the merits, the arbitrators’ authority ends with the rendering of their award, and they cannot compel compliance with the award if voluntary compliance is not forthcoming. For that, the prevailing party – now an award creditor – must turn to the national courts, where the ‘home court advantage’ can re-emerge:the place of arbitration may have been located in the award debtor’s state, giving its courts the power to annul the award; or the award debtor’s assets may be uniquely located in its home state, making that the only practical enforcement forum. And problems may be particularly acute where the award debtor is the State itself or a state-controlled entity.The present chapter considers a potential option for an award creditor whose commercial arbitration award is annulled on arbitrary or parochial grounds by the courts of the seat, or wrongfully denied enforcement in that or another jurisdiction: the use of investment arbitration to enforce commercial arbitration awards as a vindication of rights and remedies under international law.

In 2000, udlakela was diverse in its trail, levels, spread and types transforming, and evolving in different ways, in different places and times, and used on different people. The resurgence of violence in 2000 was categorically a response to emboldened opposition as civil society united to mount a spirited stand against Zanu PF autocracy. In September 1999, the ZCTU led by Morgan Tsvangirai in coalition with largely urban-based civic groups collaborated and formed a new opposition party – the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In 1999 and 2000, unprecedented nationwide political violence rocked Zimbabwe, starting during a referendum campaign for the adoption of a long overdue new constitution. The MDC defeated the government after campaigning for a ‘No’ vote in the February 2000 referendum. Held from 12 to 13 February, the result was a majority ‘no vote’. Out of a total of 1,312,738 votes cast, 697,754 were against the draft and 578,210 endorsed it. The draft constitution was rejected by 54.7 per cent against 45.3 per cent on a 26 per cent largely urban turnout. Violence in 2000 was induced by three broad issues: the referendum, land reform and the parliamentary election. These influences and the violence often coalesced but also remained distinct.

In the USA, commercial contracts often include tiered or stepped dispute resolution schemes that comprise multiple, varied mechanisms for resolving conflict. Contractual relationships are particularly suitable for tiered processes that accommodate business priorities, although critiques raise issues regarding necessity, utility and enforceability. Where courts have found contractual negotiation or mediation provisions to be valid and enforceable, the manner in which they address non-compliance under such agreements varies. When a party to a multi-step process fails or refuses to participate in contractually required negotiation or mediation prior to arbitration, there may be issues as to whether the consequences should be addressed in court or via arbitration. Despite being conventionally disfavoured in the USA, many neutrals have experience with ‘switching hats’ – ie moving from being mediator to being arbitrator, or vice versa – in the course of resolving disputes. Guidelines for the use of multi-tier processes take into account the uncertainties associated with judicial handling of stepped agreements as well as their inherent complexities, while recognising potential benefits.

By examining musical theatre icons and their major collaborations starting from Oklahoma! (1943) and ending with Waitress (2016), this chapter chronicles the evolution of the American musical, as practitioners assembled creative teams in response to shifting economics and the rise of mediated popular culture on television and the internet. Film studios and corporations such as Disney now develop and produce their own musicals, bringing new resources and structures that both support and expand the collaborative creation of musical theatre. At the same time, regional theatres and not-for-profit venues developed new models of their own for participating in musical theatre collaboration. Whether conceived in consultation with a corporate producer or tested through a low-budget laboratory process, what's inside twenty-first-century American musicals remains the product of creative, collaborative relationships.

This concluding chapter extends the scope of the book in three ways. First, it explores the relevance of its argument for other Latin American countries. Second, it examines how well the argument travels outside this region. Finally, since the book’s argument would seem to reflect negatively on the possibility of attenuating Latin America’s profound social divisions, it closes by discussing its implications for this issue and pondering the way forward for advocates of equality. The chapter argues that the account developed to explain tax burden differences among the core cases also sheds much light on at least some other Latin American countries. While its grounding in the distinctive socioeconomic and political context of Latin America means that the argument does not perform as well elsewhere, it does speak usefully to a number of theoretical debates that transcend this region. With regard to the equality question, the chapter finds that a strategy based on gradual reform centered on the fiscal system represents the least bad of the available alternatives.

While politicians, scholars, and lawyers argued about whether individuals ought to be subjects of international law and bear rights within the international order, commercial organizations, like the International Chamber of Commerce, began to advocate for the protection of property and investments at the international level. Investors, they argued, ought to be able to hale a state before a neutral tribunal in order to defend their property rights. While refugees did not have access to international courts or tribunals to defend their rights in the interwar period, commercial organizations increasingly did.

Chapter 6 examines the allocation of parentage in cases of surrogacy. The chapter seeks to identify a way to regulate surrogacy that adheres to the best interests principle and balances the interests and needs of all stakeholders in the process. It is suggested that an intention-based model of surrogacy, which is facilitated through a pre-conception allocation of parentage, satisfies the requirements of the best interests principle.

Economic growth in Indian Country has improved over the past two decades, yet entrepreneurs and businesses on most reservations still find it difficult to access credit and capital investments. As sovereign nations, tribes can support and encourage the flow of credit into their communities by creating and strengthening their secured transaction systems (STS). These commercial laws are essential to protecting the interests and rights of businesses that extend credit, such as banks.

A strong STS establishes a set of rules for secured transactions that is reasonably similar to other jurisdictions, a reliable and transparent lien filing system, and politically independent contract enforcement mechanisms. This article explores the history and components of STS across the United States and Indian Country. It also discusses the Model Tribal Secured Transactions Act, and provides insights for tribal community leaders who are considering adopting or strengthening their STS.