• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.649-657
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• 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic has unprecedented impacts on different sectors around the globe. The effects observed in developing countries are even more severe. Some projects stopped while many have cost and time overrun issues. This paper conducted a case study on the COVID-19's effects on a hotel construction project in Nepal. The study reviewed the literature on COVID-19 and its impact on construction sectors and conducted a semi-structured interview with the project's personnel. The interview response was analysed and the contributing factors that impacted the project and its performance were identified. The paper found financial, operational, contractual, safety, and risk management issues in the hotel project. Overall, the project cost increased by 32% where the material cost increased by 35% and labor cost increased by 28%. This research discusses causes, measures, and provides a broad perspective of the problems, significant challenges, and opportunities associated with the effects of COVID-19 on the construction industry. The Owner as well as the Contractors incurred added costs because of COVID-19. The paper identified contributing factors and presented the challenges which could be used as opportunities to minimize unforeseen impacts of the pandemics in near future. The lesson learned from this case study was that the labor cost and materials cost could have been minimized if the Owner and the Contractor had established alternative resources such as using locally available labor, materials, and alternative suppliers.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.18
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• pp.159-188
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• 2002

International joint ventures are usually formed and managed by domestic companies and foreign investors for the common objectives. They offer an opportunity for each partner to benefit significantly from the comparative advantages of the other. Local partners bring knowledge of the domestic market; familiarity with government bureaucracies and regulations; understanding of local labor markets; and existing manufacturing facilities. Foreign partners can offer advanced process and product technologies, management know-how, and access to export markets. In Korea, joint ventures have been encouraged to usher in foreign investors with foreign currency capital badly needed during the IMF financial crisis. In the meantime, Korean laws and regulations with respect to joint ventures have been largely overhauled to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) both inbound and outbound. They include four types of FDI, i.e., acquisition of foreign stocks, provision of long-term loans, participation in joint operations like resources development, and establishment of foreign offices. From the legal point of view, the formal joint venture agreement must be an offspring of a series of tough negotiations between domestic and foreign partners. They usually stress the long-term relationship with the good will and dedication to each other, and restrict the free transfer of stocks. Both partners are earnestly interested in the ownership and management of the joint venture. So they keep a close eye on the articles of incorporation, changes of business environment, conflict resolution methods, transparency of accounting and other financial matters. When a multinational corporation (MNC) is involved in the joint venture, conflicts over management strategies, marketing and other issues take place more often than not between the MNC and local partners. We have to pay attention to joint ventures, particularly, in China and North Korea. As witnessed in other transition economies, China is eagerly bringing in foreign direct investments for the development of nation's economy. China encourages foreign investors to establish ordinary joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, solely invested foreign capital companies and jointly operated development companies with local partners. In North Korea, however, joint ventures have a different meaning like contractual joint ventures in China, in which North Korean partners have an initiative in the management. Rather, jointly operated companies or simply processing-for-wage companies are recommended in view of the unpredictable legal infrastructure in North Korea.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.783-814
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• 2012

Innovations of SMEs are critical for economic growth and creating employment. Collaborative innovations between SMEs and Public Research Institutes has been increasingly important to overcome limitation of SMEs innovation capability. Many studies on the collaborative innovation have been focused on the issues of absorptive capacity, project administration, and relationships of actors. This study, however, focus on attribute of project leader and partnership. Data on 149 R&D collaborative projects between SMEs and a Public Research Institute were collected. Empirical results show that project leaders' capabilities and partnerships including informal collaborative relationship unification, administrative unification, and contractual unification appear to affect performances both economical and technical. It also shows that the previous experience of R&D collaboration appear to effect the relationship between project leaders' capabilities, contractual unification, and administrative unification and technical performances.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.51
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• pp.465-495
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• 2011

Domestic franchised businesses have been showing relatively fast growth, but the growth is expected to slow down as in those developed countries. In face of this changing market environment, domestic franchisers will have to turn their eyes abroad to achieve sustainable growth. On the other hand, more international franchisors could pursue expanding into the Korean market due to economic or strategic reasons in their home countries. In general, enterprises are faced with several barriers when entering foreign markets by franchising their operation. Issues relating to such entry barriers can be broadly classified into legal and managerial. To begin, international franchising necessitates enterprises to handle various aspects of legal issues. There are no internationally unified rules for franchise agreements as in international goods purchase contracts. This forces franchisors to have deep knowledge of concerned regulations and practices of each of the individual target countries, in particular franchising practices which differ from those of their own countries in terms of rights and obligations of the involved parties. Having regard to this situation, this study reviewed the EU's PEL CAFDC and other domestic and overseas regulations governing franchising. From the results, several contractual obligations were derived that need to be taken into account when handling the issues around the international franchise agreement. In closing this paper mainly having in mind enterprises in various business lines seeking to expand into international franchising, some unmet needs are worth commenting. First, there is an urgent need to establish practical guidelines along with the model agreement addressing the issues of international franchising in the absence of any unified international rules. Second, to meet the first need above, it is needed that the relevant authorities conduct a comprehensive review of the existing franchising regulations available across overseas countries and, based on the results, embark on gathering good common elements in the existing franchising regulations in individual countries, ultimately developing the best possible guidelines and examples.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2014

Comparatively, the construction industry has, on average, a higher rate of fatal and major injuries, work induced ill-health and damage to properties than other industrial sectors; and this is a source of concern to industry stakeholders. The study showed that although subcontracting could be contributory to an increase in workplace accidents in the construction industry, contractual aspects of subcontracting arrangements (such as the power imbalance that exist along the client-customer interface) also present opportunities for improvements in health and safety management (HSM) practices in organisations. This conclusion was reached after an analysis of a questionnaire survey (with a 27% response rate) that assessed the attitudes and perception to health and safety issues.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.43
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• pp.297-336
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• 2009

In modern industrial society carriage of dangerous goods by sea becomes more increasing than ever before. Dangerous goods are required for special care and handling in that shipment of dangerous goods could affect safety of the vessel and other cargoes. It is also true that dangerous goods could be used as a means of terrorism. his article investigates allocation of risk and liabilities between parties involved in the carriage of dangerous goods by sea. More specifically, this study examines principles of strict liability of the shipper in shipment of dangerous goods with some limitations based upon recent cases. Furthermore this article investigates the issues on identity of shipper who bears strict liability to the carrier where there exist actual or documentary shipper other than the contractual shipper. Lastly, whether it is reasonable that the transfer of strict liability to the transferee, who does not have opportunity to verify dangerous nature of the goods before shipment, by endorsing bills of lading will be discussed critically.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.51
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• pp.55-78
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• 2011

This paper has derived some problems relating to the use of letters of intent which are common occurrence in the international contracts after considering its nature and legal issues. As reviewed before, some problems may occur when a party has documented a stage in the negotiations by letters of intent. Such documents may well explicitly spell out if, and to what extent, the parties should be bound by what they have already agreed or to carry on negotiations in order to reach the final contract. But if the documents are silent, some problems would arise. Contracting parties are therefore well advised to spell out if, and to what extent, they should be bound by such preliminary agreements. Here again, it might be prudent to explicitly set forth that the parties should not be bound until there is a final written contract signed by authorized representatives of the parties but that they shall abstain from such measures which may defeat their stated objective to reach final agreement, for example, by diminishing the value of performance under the contemplated contract.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.71-89
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• 2008

International technology transfer(ITT) or technology trade is a very comprehensive term covering various mechanisms and channels for shifting technologies across borders. Thus, it refers to numerous complex processes, ranging from innovation and international marketing of technology to its absorption and imitation. It includes technology, trade, and investment. Markets for exchanging technologies are inherently subject to failure due to appropriability problems, spillovers, asymmetric information, and market power. Thus, there is strong justification for public intervention. Technology developers are interested in reducing the costs and uncertainty of making transfers, along with protecting their rights to profit from such transfers. On the other hand, technology importers are interested in acquiring knowledge at minimal costs, asking for restricting sharply the exclusive rights of foreign firms to exploit technology. The purpose of this paper is to review the characteristics, risks, legal issues and contractual check points of ITT, focusing on the avoidance of commercial disputes during the very complex processes of ITT.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.45
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• pp.3-31
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• 2010

The passing of property in goods affects contractual rights and duties. It is the point on which depend issues as diverse as the seller's entitlement to sue for the price and the incidence of risk of loss of casualty to the goods. The passing of property may also have an incidental effect on the remedies of the parties, including specific performance. But Incoterms do not deal with how the goods should reach the agreed point of delivery. While Incoterms specifically deal with questions of division of risk of loss of or damage to the goods between seller and buyer, they do not deal with property or transfer of title of the goods. Indeed, it was not even possible to agree on uniform rules on these questions in the CISG. Therefore, the parties to a contract of sale should provide for these matters themselves in the contract of sale and closely observe what the applicable law requires for the transfer of ownership to the goods and other property rights.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.611-624
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• 2007

Every construction project expects a success. In order to attain success for every project involved, issues that are related to the success of a construction project must be identified. This paper identifies those key factors, which contribute to the success of construction projects. The main factors crucial to project success were identified from a literature review and through a questionnaire survey administered to local contractors. A follow-up interview was conducted to validate the first survey and to evaluate the perception of the local contractors. An Analytical Hierarchy Model was used to obtain the final Critical Success Factors. The identification of the critical factors related to the success of construction projects will contribute to the achievement of a particular objective which will accomplish the success of the project. Aspects that affect the success of the project are the project characteristic, contractual arrangement, parties involved in a construction project and finally, and the aspect of the project interactive processes.