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A cartel is a group of similar, independent companies which join together to fix prices, limit production or share markets or customers among themselves. The most significant feature of this anticompetitive activity is its restriction of competition between the parties involved in the arrangement. The objective of a cartel is to raise prices above competitive levels, which can result in injury to consumers and to the economy. This is why cartels are considered not only harmful for the economy as a whole but also, as a catalysing factor, destructive for the idealized approach of maintaining a level playing field in the market. Thus various jurisdictions, or rather almost all competition regimes, declare cartels an illegal activity subject to severe fines and penalties. But it is well known that the enforcement mechanisms of laws against cartels differ from country to country, and yet the striking similarity is that almost all competition authorities face the same uphill task of detecting and busting cartels in a manner that leads to efficient and desired prosecution.

This paper focuses on an analysis of the newly introduced leniency regulations in India and the parameters of their effectiveness through a comparative analytical study of BRICS leniency regulations, specifically the experiences shared by South Africa, Brazil and Russia in the application of leniency tools and a marker system. The paper further considers the weaknesses of the existing leniency regulations in India and in BRICS and concludes by offering a future path for possible improvements in the form of certain recommendations.

This study consists of a critical comparative analysis of the administrative justice systems in eighteen Latin-American signatory countries of the American Convention on Human Rights (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela). According to this article, the excessive litigation in Latin-American courts that has seriously hampered the effectiveness of the administrative justice systems may be explained as follows: as former Iberian colonies, the aforementioned countries have a Continental European legal culture originating in civil law but nevertheless have improperly integrated certain aspects of the unified judicial system (generalized courts) typical of administrative law in common-law countries. This situation, according to the author, could be rectified through strengthening the public administrative authorities with respect to their dispute-resolution and purely executive functions by endowing them with prerogatives to act independently and impartially, oriented by the principle of legality understood in the sense of supremacy of fundamental rights, in light of the doctrine of diffuse conventionality control adopted by the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights.

This article provides an overview of the federal administrative justice system in Argentina. It begins with an explanation of how the power to enact procedural law and to organize administrative courts is distributed between the federal state and the local states. It then describes the core constitutional and statutory principles and structures of administrative jurisdiction and the courts, and discusses the lack of a general special procedure to deal with actions involving the federal state and federal subject matter issues (except for interim measures and ‘amparo’ proceedings). The article goes on to provide an explanation of what is currently happening regarding class actions within this context, and it ends with remarks by the author on some provisional conclusions.

This essay describes the organization of administrative courts in Italy, as a set of courts distinguished from ordinary courts that deal with civil and commercial cases. Since the 19th century Italy has adopted a dual system of jurisdiction, and has never abandoned the traditional criterion according to which ordinary jurisdiction and administrative jurisdiction are established: this criterion, having regard to the entitlement claimed by the plaintiff, is unique to Italy and, leaving aside its distinctiveness, it is quite enigmatic and difficult to apply in practice. Reference is made to the procedure followed before administrative courts, a procedure recently updated through the enactment of the Code of Administrative Procedure.

The administrative justice in France oscillates between classicism and singularity. Multiple factors explain how administrative justice has come to occupy a particular place in French administrative law. Administrative justice has not only settled disputes between administration and private persons, but as well, built the French administrative law. One of the main tasks during 19th and 20th century consisted in strengthen the independence from the executive branch and the efficiency in order to satisfy the idea of good justice. Many reforms have been led since the 1990’s. That is why we propose to depict the French system and evaluate the activity of French administrative justice concerning the judicial organization, its jurisdiction and the remedies before the administrative judge. We will enlighten also our paper with a comparative approach and some statistical elements.

Since the Spanish Constitution of 1978 there has been a full and effective administrative justice. The citizens have the possibility to request a judicial review of decisions taken by the public Administrations, while being either the owners of a subjective right or of a legitimate interest. The interim judicial protection is not limited to the suppression of the act or general provision and the Courts are invested with direct powers to enforce their sentences. However, different problematic issues about the inactivity of the public Administrations and the enforcement of sentences are the new challenges to ensure the administrative justice. To this it must be added that there are problems regarding the inefficient work of Courts.

This article begins with an analysis of the development of administrative justice in Poland over the last centuries. In particular, the author examines administrative jurisdiction before 1918, when Poland regained its independence, the period of the Duchy of Warsaw, the Kingdom of Poland, and the practice on Polish territory under Austrian and Prussian control. The author then moves to modern law by presenting the judicial system in Poland in general, especially the differences between the separate systems of general courts and administrative courts, and analyses the jurisdiction of voivodship (regional) administrative courts, and the basic principles of judicial and administrative proceedings. The focus of study is mainly devoted to judicial and administrative procedure, rather than an administrative process of citizens before administrative authorities regulated in a separate Code of Administrative Procedure. The article describes the role of the judge (pointing out the differences between the active role of first instance judges and the limited capabilities of the judges of the appeal) and the powers of the Supreme Court, in particular its power to adopt resolutions, which has agreat importance for the unification of the jurisprudence. A brief analysis is given to class actions, which in the Polish legal system are inadmissible in court and administrative proceedings. The articles provides a statistical cross-section illustrating the role of administrative jurisdiction. The author concludes with observations pointing up the progress of administrative jurisdiction in Poland, not only in the legal sense, but also in the cultural sense.

In 2015 in Russian Federation the new Administrative Procedure Code was adopted. The Code uses the legal terms of action proceedings (administrative claim, administrative counterclaim, administrative plaintiff and defendant etc.) and determines “dispositive” rights of parties of administrative proceedings.

The author’s intention is to analyze the scope of applying of the principle of party autonomy in administrative (judicial) proceedings. The article contains the comparative analysis of the principle in civil and administrative proceedings.

The lives of human beings are full of complexities, but LGBT face much more trauma compared to other people. What is necessary is to understand the sentiments of the LGBT community and also to grant them common human rights. But the world lowers its eyes and refuses a discussion over the granting of basic human rights to the LGBT community. And it is so sad to see that such discrimination exists even in the 21st century. Indian law, on the whole, only recognizes the paradigm of the binary genders of male and female, based on a person’s sex assigned at birth, which permits a gender system, including the laws relating to marriage, adoption, inheritance, succession and taxation, and welfare legislation. The most pertinent question with respect to the LGBT community is whether LGBT are to be discriminated against by other human beings. Merely being different does not give others the authority to ostracize one from society. In fact, in July 2009 the Delhi High Court ruled that consensual same-sex relations between adults in private could not be criminalized. Then in a recent judgment, the Supreme Court of India expressed its concerns over the mental trauma, emotional agony and pain of the members of the transgender community: all forms of mental suffering of the LGBT community, as well as ignorance and isolation of the community, were brought to an end by the Court’s decision in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India & Others.

Reviewed book: Russian Business Law: the essentials (E.P. Gubin, A.E. Molotnikov eds, Moscow, STARTUP 2016).