This paper argues that the consequences of the 'fragmentation' of the European patent system are more dramatic than the mere prohibitive costs of maintaining a patent in force in many jurisdictions. First, detailed analysis of judicial systems in several European countries and four case studies...

There is extensive literature on whether courts or legislators produce efficient rules, but which of them produces rules efficiently? The law is subject to uncertainty ex ante; uncertainty makes the outcomes of trials difficult to predict and deters parties from settling disputes out of court. In...

This paper deals with the risk of opportunism – the usual risk in economic exchanges. The breach of contract is probably the most common event in daily life and has therefore attracted research and debates in many disciplines of the social sciences. Our discussion deals with the current...

This essay explores whether collective settlements offer advantages for achieving just outcomes in light of the various types of uncertainty that arise in mass disputes. Looking in particular at the example of product liability litigation, one can identify at least six areas of potential...

The key question in this paper is to determine whether regulation and regulators information can help solving causal uncertainty problems in liability. A widely held view among Law & Economics scholars is that civil liability alone is not well-suited to cope with environmental accidents,...

People seriously misjudge accident risks because they routinely neglect relevant information about exposure. Such risk judgments affect both personal and public policy decisions, e.g., choice of a transport mode, but also play a vital role in legal determinations, such as assessments of...

We investigate how individual risk preferences affect the likelihood of selecting the more able contestant within a two-player Tullock contest. Our theoretical model yields two main predictions: First, an increase in the risk aversion of a player worsens her odds unless she already has a...

Court delays are a frequent concern, yet what explains court case duration remains incompletely understood. We study the time to court case resolution by drawing on a detailed case-level dataset of civil suits filed at a major Belgian court. We utilize the competing risks regression framework to...

This study investigates factors associated with restatement-related litigation against U.S. audit committee members. Using a sample of restatement-related litigation in the U.S. over the period 1999-2012, we find that the likelihood of audit committee litigation is higher in the post-SOX time...

Using a large set of restatement announcements and regulatory filings by U.S.-listed firms between 2003 and 2009, we find evidence that managers aim to reduce litigation risk by (1) bundling negative information, such as earnings restatements, with other public announcements, and (2) leaking...