The Changing Paradigm of State-Controlled Entities Regulation: Laws, Contracts and Disputes: Introduction
Jędrzej Górski, 'The Changing Paradigm of State-controlled Entities Regulation: Laws, Contracts and Disputes: Introduction' (2020) 17(6) 1-10.
11 Pages Posted: 5 Nov 2022
Date Written: 2020
Abstract
The operations of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have increasingly been interwoven with the problem of foreign direct investment (FDI) in recent years. On the one hand, the FDI by foreign SOEs have been on the rise. The SOEs domiciled in post-communist states have still been operating under a state-capitalism paradigm instead of pure wealth maximisation paradigm, advancing various non-commercial policy goals of their owners. Such SOEs also have increasingly gone global, investing in a wide range of economic sectors, and stepping into shoes of foreign investors in the host countries. On the other hand, the FDI by foreign investors in the SOEs of the host countries has been on the rise too. SOEs have been increasingly cooperating in domestic operations with foreign investors (including both foreign private enterprises and foreign SCEs) as minority stakeholders, or partners in various forms of public-private-partnership (PPP). This has been particularly the case in the utility and infrastructure sectors, often operating based on special or exclusive rights. While some FDI might be welcome, the host states still prefer to maintain controlling stakes in such sectors.
The emergence of SOEs on the global FDI scene raises broad issues in regulatory fields as diverse as company law, trade law, investment law, competition law or international taxation. Most contentious appear to be laws on investment screening mechanism (ISM) or outright economic sanctions, being newly adopted or amended in many jurisdictions in reply to the challenges identified above. The question of governmental control of multinational companies through ownership clashing with the regulatory autonomy of host states will increasingly lead to many normative conflicts and complex transnational disputes (whether legislative or contractual) which are the focus on this TDM Special Issue
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