Cool Things My Friends Do: Bill Singer Saxophone Repairman - 30 Years In New York City

Each Friday on this blog I enjoy highlighting some of the cool things my friends do in their personal and professional lives.

The song says "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere" in regards to succeeding in New York City.  To be on top of your game in the Big Apple for thirty years is quite an accomplishment for anyone, and this month marks three decades that my brother has been the premier Saxophone Repairman in New York City.

Bill Singer moved to New York City to play music, surround himself with the best musicians in the world, and to repair instruments.  He has always loved the saxophone, and over the years his hands have saved many thousands of horns from disrepair.

Bill is 12 years older than me, and his constant practicing and playing music (and his love of Jazz) echoes in my childhood memories.  I can recall being unable to hear the television even though he was playing in his own room.  Not being able to hear The Flintstones meant complaints to the parents (maybe whining and tears?), and Bill was often sent out to the garage to practice.  I can still see the image in my head of him in exile down the driveway on rainy nights belting out tunes. 

To earn a living he began repairing horns.  The saxophone is a delicate instrument, and Bill's commitment to each repair is evident in the artistic manner in which he applies his craft.  I have watched him work, and he treats each horn repair as a work of art.  The passion of that kid learning to play that saxophone in the garage is evident today in the way he runs his business.  All jobs get the same level of attention, no matter how big or how small.  He enjoys working with the new aspiring musicians as much as he does the celebrities (He has repaired the horns of many of the most renowned saxophone players of our time, some referring to him as "the Music Doctor").

All of his clients find him through word-of-mouth, and he is known far beyond boroughs of New York City.  It is not uncommon for those coming the area to bring their saxophones with them for an appointment.... but an appointment is always needed, as his calendar is booked months in advance.  He is a great example of how "Word-of-Mouth Marketing" can book you solid.  Do great work in a niche business and the customers will find you!  While he is not the only repairman, his dedication to the craft of saxophone repair has made him "the" repairman of choice.

Bill has seen a lot of changes in New York City and in the music industry.  He has survived the good times and the bad with a strong focus on overcoming all odds. Quitting has never been an option. 

Passion, plus hard work, has transformed his love of the saxophone into his career. While Bill Singer works hard, I do not think he considers what he does to be "work".  He always seems to be having fun!  

Doing something you love and being your own boss can be pretty cool...thus he is today's entry into "Cool Things My Friends Do".

Congrats to my big brother on 30 years in New York City!!!

Check out the attached video created by one of Bill's clients.... it has over 18,000 views on YouTube and shows a great personal side of Bill in action!!

Have A Great Day

thom singer

(Note the below photos of a repair)

D.C. Circuit Sides with Comcast in Dispute with Tennis Channel

This week's D.C. Circuit ruling siding with Comcast in its carriage dispute with Tennis Channel came as little surprise. It ruled that the Federal Communications Commission failed to justify its conclusion that the cable provider (known as a "multichannel video programmer distributor" in today's parlance) discriminated against the Tennis Channel (not owned by Comcast) by placing it in a more expensive tier than the Golf Channel and Versus (now the NBC Sports Network). The ruling is available here.

For cable services, the ruling will come as a big relief. The opinion concluded that the FCC's determination Comcast's disparate treatment of the Tennis Channel by tiering it in a more expensive package was not discriminatory under sec. 616 of the 1992 Cable Act, and rejected the Commission's factual basis for making that determination. Judge Williams, writing for the court, stated that the FCC failed to provide "adequate evidence" to bolster its claims of discrimination. He did not address the more fundamental argument made by Comcast -- that the statute, or at least its application, was a First Amendment violation of the free speech rights of the cable provider. Basically, the court found that there were valid reasons for placing the Golf Channel and Versus on a lower, cheaper and more widely distributed tier than Tennis Channel and that there was no evidence that this differentiation was based on the fact that Tennis Channel was not a part of Comcast. Additionally, there was no evidence presented that Comcast would gain any financial benefit by placing Tennis on that same tier of service as the others, noting that no expert witnesses, or written studies were provided. That lack of evidence of any potential financial game was crucial in the court's determination. So, the court essentially rejected the FCC's emphasis on the similarities of the programming on the Golf, Versus and Tennis Channels and the disparate treatment of them, without anything more.

There were two concurring opinions. Judge Edwards discussed procedural issues (not the focus here), but Judge Kavanaugh produced an analysis of sec. 616 in terms of antitrust jurisprudence, with a passing reference to First Amendment standards. As to the antitrust issue, he opined that sec. 616 violations should be based on the same standards of proof as antitrust claims involving vertical concentration because sec, 616(a)(3) requires that the FCC enact regulations that prevent the cable operators from discriminatory conduct which "unreasonably restrains" the ability of the unaffiliated service to fairly compete.  In so doing, he found that there was no per se violation and there was no evidence of undue market power on the part of Comcast (a point that is debatable, given the general monopoly nature of cable operators). Therefore such vertical restraints (as found with the connection between Comcast and Golf/Versus) was presumptively pro-competitive.

Judge Kavanaugh then pushes what I think is a speculative connection between antitrust the First Amendment principles. He states: "applying sec. 616 to a video programming distributor that lacks market power would violate the First Amendment as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court." Cases that generally applied an intermediate scrutiny test that has been upheld by the "monopolistic characteristics" of cable programmers and the need for access. I am not convinced at the connection and there is no specific mention of such a connection in Turner v. FCC,  512 U.S. 622 (1994) which upheld mandatory carriage requirements under an intermediate scrutiny test. He also that technological changes have weakened any undue market power of cable operators, inferring that the today, unlike the 1990s, cable regulations such as sec. 616 would be harder to justify today.

The majority did not wade into this territory, but nonetheless gave Comcast a big win. It would be more difficult for independent sports channels to provide discrimination, at least in the DC Circuit.

Links May 31

Leading transparency campaigners welcome UN development report Global Witness

Australia Publishes Tax Transparency Legislation Tax-News
See also: World's big companies must be made to pay fair share of tax Sydney Morning Herald and Top firms' tax haven links revealed Sydney Morning Herald

Another nail in the coffin of tax secrecy Financial Times
Big economies are turning the tide against havens, though only up to a point

Minister wants to remove tax evader ‘shield’ swissinfo
Abandoning the traditional Swiss distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud would be a very interesting development. Banks have long hidden behind the view that if you declare nothing, there's no problem.

Swiss hesitate over tax accord swissinfo
Switzerland is withholding its signature on the OECD's convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters because it wants to “keep all options open”  according to Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann.

Levy free: How billions of pounds have been siphoned off to tax havens The Guardian
On using royalties and interest payments as tax dodges. Pascal Saint-Amans, OECD's head of tax, explains measures will be taken - but says somewhat bizarrely: "We put an end to bank secrecy in 2009, we can do this too". We certainly didn't notice this 'end to bank secrecy.'

OECD prepares new rules to limit corporate tax avoidance The Guardian

Double Dutch: loopholes get multinationals off tax hook The Irish Times

Apple and Google got €25m in grant aid from IDA Irish Independent

Apple founder Steve Wozniak: public anger at tax arrangements is 'warranted' The Telegraph

Insight: How U.S. Treasury's tax loophole mistake saves companies billions each year Reuters

U.S.: No Replacement for Corporate Taxes The New York Times
See also: Don't reward companies that send profits offshore The Baltimore Sun

Singapore, Hong Kong to Claim Larger Share of Offshore Wealth Pie The Wall Street Journal

Offshore wealth grows despite crackdown on tax havens Financial Times

Lloyds continues sale of private banks The Telegraph
See here for our comment on the wow factor of these developments.

UK-linked tax havens must now join countries refusing to hide dirty money Christian Aid

Lee Sheppard: Don't sign OECD model tax treaties!

Update: June 3. We now know that Sheppard wrote an article for Tax Analysts entitled How Can Vulnerable Countries Cope With Tax Avoidance? (p410) It covers the issues below more thoroughly, and contains much that is interesting and not covered in the blog below.

We have just come across this video of a presentation in Norway by Lee Sheppard, contributing editor at Tax Notes International, and one of the U.S.' best known tax experts. Provided by Publish What You Pay Norway, it is fascinating, and in this blog we have transcribed a chunk of her speech, explaining why the OECD has caused so much damage in the arena of international tax.

She introduces her talk, promisingly, like this:

"I am going to talk about what the existing international consensus is, and how the countries that you people represent can defend yourselves against the structural problems."

First, a few short highlights, either in quotes or in our summary of the quotes. The full text of this section from her presentation is pasted below. The emphasis is obviously ours.

    •    "Don’t sign OECD model treaties, don’t sign U.N. model treaties!"[From her Tax Analysts piece: "By signing an OECD model treaty, a signatory accepts separate company accounting (which enables shell corporations), arm’s-length transfer pricing (a battle of the experts), and permanent establishment (a limitation on tax jurisdiction over companies doing business). The OECD model treaty — the accepted international standard — is the ultimate source of the problems."]

    •    For multinationals, "there are countries for which there is extraction, and countries where there are customers, and these are all countries from which income has got to be stripped. And the rubric that allows this is the international consensus. It is the whole treaty network. The treaties protect multinationals primarily. That’s all they were ever for: to make life comfortable for multinationals". . . The international consensus is "basically a load of nonsense that protects multinationals." When you sign onto the international consensus, you sign on to a bunch of deleterious consequences.

    •    "When you sign an OECD model treaty, you say there is no withholding, or hardly any withholding, on outflows of cash to multinationals. Now why in hell do you want to sign that?

    •    The OECD primarily protects the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom. Even Germany doesn't get a look in.

    •    "South America does not sign OECD model treaties. Because a treaty is a contract. They read the document. They don’t like the terms."

    •    When you sign an OECD model treaty you also sign onto a concept called Permanent Establishment. "It is a rather nonsensical concept that says, ‘well, if you, multinational, are operating in a country and making money in a country, but you have any presence that is short of, oh, a full automobile assembly plant, then you are not taxable in that country at the level of the owner of this plant. This thing has a little circle drawn around it, and it cannot be taxed in a normal way. That is a pillar of that treaty. . . . you do not want to sign a document that has got that in it.


    •    Do not sign tax treaties with tax havens. The United States by and large does not sign treaties with tax havens, though there is a group of "enablers" such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland which escape the net. "These are members of European organisations in good standing . .  but they also do a full-on business as conduits of money out of the market countries: that is all of your countries."

    •    The U.S. has treaties with Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, all these European enablers – because our businesses want to strip income out of Europe. I don’t know why Europe doesn’t get peeved at us.

    •    "The US does a lot of business with Brazil. The US has no tax treaty with Brazil. You can do business with a country without a tax treaty. You don’t need one. You do need a bilateral investment treaty."


    •    "So what do you do if you have a treaty with the enablers? You want switch-over clauses. . . .  if the other party of the treaty doesn’t tax it, then the first party – in this case Norway – gets to tax it. And the OECD model has, in the draft, a switch-over clause that you can just pop into the document."

Full transcript of this section is below. The rest of the talk is interesting too. This section starts at about 3:20 into the presentation. She occasionally refers to a

diagram: it's here: click to enlarge.

"Don’t sign OECD model treaties, don’t sign U.N. model treaties!

The OECD does not have the interests of small and medium-sized vulnerable countries – and notice that I am not talking about developing and developed countries. As far as these multinationals and their advisers are concerned there is no differentiation: there is only countries for which there is extraction and countries where there are customers, and these are all countries from which income has got to be stripped. And the rubric that allows this is the international consensus. It is the whole treaty network. The treaties protect multinationals primarily. That’s all they were ever for: to make life comfortable for multinationals.

Secondarily, the OECD protects the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom. Germany is the biggest economy in Europe: it doesn’t really even qualify to be listened to at the OECD. There are things that Germany wants to address – this commission arrangement here (on the diagram) – they are not going to get them. They are not a constitutent. If they are not a constituent, is Norway a constituent?

Back to the treaty part: it’s almost an advantage being small: you want to enact specific defensive laws to address the problems that you know you have. If you problems with the pricing of minerals going out of your country, or you have problems with ships being towed out into the ocean and sold, I can write you a two sentence statute that says ‘if you have an oil rig that is licenced to operate in Norwegian waters continuously, and it is sold while under contract, then the sale took place in Norway, no matter where the actual sale took place. That is not a hard statute to draft. You can draft protective stuff and get it in their law and they can’t argue with it. Right now, in some of these situations the treaties are protecting them, and the countries that are harmed are not protecting themselves.

Those of you who are from mineral exporting countries, for heavens’ sakes, the agreements that you sign: this is the point of maximum leverage over the multinational company extracting the minerals: they want the minerals, you have them, you can put the conditions and the tax conditions in the agreements. 6:50 As I understand it, I am told that both sides of the North Sea: both the United Kingdom and Norway signed Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) – you haven’t been able to get a PSA from Saudi Arabia for 50 years. The country owns the minerals, the multinational just paid to take them out, and then it buys them from the country at the world price, which is a very easy thing to find.

Why not to sign OECD treaties? Professor Christian was talking about the norms: the international consensus. This is basically a load of nonsense that protects multinationals. When you sign onto the international consensus, you sign on to a bunch of consequences that have very deleterious effects on what we call a Source Country: that is, a market country. This is Norway and all the countries that are represented in this room: right here, where the limited risk distributor and the customer are. When you sign an OECD model treaty, you say there is no withholding, or hardly any withholding, on outflows of cash to multinationals. Now why in hell do you want to sign that?   8:30

India, South America, withhold. South America does not sign OECD model treaties. Because a treaty is a contract. They read the document. They don’t like the terms.

You sign on to respecting all these little boxes as real, live corporations that decide their own actions and are separate economic actors: and as we know these are not separate economic actors. On a balance sheet these things don’t exist and the transactions between them don’t exist. You sign onto not only recognising the transactions between them – you sign on to recognising and respecting the self-serving contracts that the multinationals’ lawyers wrote to explain those flows, out of your country, of cash on which there is no withholding.

You also sign onto a concept called Permanent Establishment, and this is one that the Indians are fighting to the wall. Next time you have one of these conferences, invite people from the Indian and Chinese goverments. They have signed a bunch of these treaties and they are fighting this stuff: they are fighting for their own interpretation of this stuff, fighting the Permanent Establishment concept. It is a rather nonsensical concept that says, ‘well, if you multinational are oprating in a country and making money in a country, but you have any presence that is short of, oh, a full automobile assembly plant, you are not taxable in that country at the level of the owner of this plant. This thing has a little circle drawn around it, and it cannot be taxed in a normal way. That is a pillar of that treaty. The treaty allows companies to go in through the internet and sell services to everyone in that country, and not pay tax. That is ridiculous. That is what Permanent Establishment has come to mean: you do not want to sign a document that has got that in it.

11:19

What do you do if you have these treaties? Norway has an awful lot of them. The European Commission the other day made some interesting suggestions. A multinational not paying tax anywhere, including in most of Europe, has gotten so bad that even the guys in charge of borderless Europe are starting to notice this, and say ‘you shouldn’t sign treaties with tax havens.’ You shouldn’t. The United States by and large does not sign treaties with tax havens.  That is how the US blacklists people: if you don’t have a treaty with the US that means it blacklists you. But they have a kind of narrow definition of tax havens: one of the definitions was that it’s a small jurisdiction, and you have to be small to be a tax haven. Because if you have real responsibilities to people and schools and so on, you kind of have to have taxes to finance that kind of stuff. It also offers special deals to non-residents. That’s like Gibraltar: that’s a very narrow definition.  You don’t want to sign treaties with. But also, the other ones you don’t want to sign treaties with are the international enablers: the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, these are members of European organisations in good standing: they are low tax jurisdictions, they have real tax systems, they tax their own people – but they also do a full-on business as conduits of money out of the market countries: that is all of your countries.

When your people are consuming goods and services from big multinationals: all those American products and entertainment that you want to keep your children away from: you are a market country. These are the conduits they use to get the income out of your country after your child has whined and pulled on your leg and you went and bought that product you didn’t want to buy. You don’t really want treaties with them – but these conduits have treaties with everybody, because you can’t run yourself as a holding country without treaties.

You are beginning to see how treaties enable all this.

South America: Brazil is a huge country. The US does a lot of business with Brazil. The US has no tax treaty with Brazil. You can do business with a country without a tax treaty. You don’t need one. You do need a bilateral investment treaty, which says that there has to be arbitration if there is a dispute, you need the rule of law, but you don’t need a tax treaty.

15:00

So what do you do if you have a treaty with the enablers?

You want switch-over clauses. This country, Norway, signed a treaty with Ireland in 2000. It is clear that Ireland is one of the enablers. These rulings will defend the multinational’s position in competent authority negotiations: that is a treaty negotiations between the two affected countries. That is part of the services they sell. There is nothing for them to defend if you have a switch-over clause. The Norway-Ireland treaty, I don’t think has a switch-over clause. Here is what that means. Norway is an exemption jurisdiciton: that means foreign active income is exempt from taxation in Norway. Well, if the income is shifted to Ireland, and Ireland doesn’t tax it – then guess what? Ain’t nobody taxes it. A switch-over clause says that if the other party of the treaty doesn’t tax it, then the first party – in this case Norway – gets to tax it. And the OECD model has, in the draft, a switch-over clause that you can just pop into the document.

But your businesses will whine.

-    You have to have a treaty with Switzerland.
-    Why?
-    We need it for business!
-    What business?
-    Well, tax evasion, OK advoidance. We need it for tax planning.

And that argument carries, in the United States. The US has treaties with Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, all these European enablers – because our businesses want to strip income out of Europe. I don’t know why Europe doesn’t get peeved at us for having this policy.

You have got to have switch-over clauses."

End of section.

This took up about 17 minutes: the rest of the 38 minute presentation contains much that is of interest.

This will be stored permanently on our Tax Treaties webpage.

Links May 30

Africa’s riches could ‘dwarf international assistance’: NGO EurActiv

Illicit financial flows have made Africa 'a net creditor to the world' The Guardian

Semeta Says Some EU Nations Make It Too Easy To Avoid Tax Bloomberg

Swiss want their banks to break the law and reveal US tax evaders—for now Quartz
See also commentary blogged earlier

Rwanda: Make Tax Evasion a Risky Venture allAfrica

Nokia's India Tax Troubles Widen The Wall Street Journal

Korea Will Probe Chaebol Executives Named in Tax-Evasion Reports Bloomberg Businessweek

Austria out front as EU zeroes in on tax evasion The Budapest Times

Apple's dirty little tax secret - video Guardian

Apple’s Tax Dodge Should Prompt Rethink in Ireland Bloomberg

Is the OECD puffing bluff so we don’t notice there will be no real progress on tax at the G8? Tax Research UK

Mauritius Central Bank Chief: We're Not A Tax Haven The Wall Street Journal
A common theme.

Documents Show Obama Officials in Tension Over British Banks Deal%k
On the HSBC and Standard Chartered money laundering scandals

One of the World’s Largest Digital Currency Companies and Seven of Its Principals and Employees Charged in Manhattan Federal Court with Running Alleged $6 Billion Money Laundering Scheme U.S. Department of Justice
See also: U.S. Says Firm Laundered Billions The Wall Street Journal

Fiat Industrial To Become UK Tax Resident Tax-News
Political row in Italy over move of corporate tax domicile to the UK

Income Inequality Gets Worse When You Slash Taxes On The Rich: Study Huffington Post

Dolce and Gabbana in court over tax charges The Guardian

Show Us the Local Subsidies: Cities and Counties Disclosing Economic Development Incentives Good Jobs First

A new reason why making banks hold more capital may not make them that much safer Quartz

Jealousy Holds You Back

Jealousy.   It is as old as time itself.  No matter how advanced our society becomes, there are still those who are jealous of what others accomplish.  There is no app that changes how people will feel (or behave).  Jealousy is called the "Green-Eyed Monster"... and it really is a monster!

A question was raised this week by a client on how to deal with someone who is jealous.  She has a business relationship with someone who is constantly complaining about how others have more than her, despite her advanced intelligence and degrees.  This petty attitude and desire to keep up with the "Joneses" was well known in their group of friends, but it was starting to drive my client crazy.  She could not just cut this person out because of a long list of personal and business inner-connections.

I did not know how to advise my client, as I can think of few people I have dealt with that had that worn jealousy on the outside to this degree.  I have a few examples of people who did not share a like-minded view on celebrating success in others (and found ways to try to undermine others).  But those people seem to move to find others to annoy with their jealous nature.  

You cannot control what goes on in the heads of other people.  If you cannot remove yourself from a person who has something in their personality that bothers you, it is best to just accept that we all have our good stuff and bad stuff.  Accept that others are just human.  Move on when you can.  Smile and be nice the rest of the time.

Jealousy holds you back.  We all have those feeling of envy sometimes, but letting it bubble over into jealousy will block your own path to success.  I try to remember that other people's success is simply proof that there are pathways to my own achievement.  Then I go work on my goals.  The victories that others have in their life should be an inspiration, not a distraction.  We can all accomplish so much more in our lives.

Have A Great Day

thom singer

Two superb articles on Google, Apple and tax

Philip Stephens in the Financial Times 'gets it' on Google and its boss Eric Schmidt, who has said he is proud of his company's slippery, gymnastic tax-dodging ways, and is 'perplexed' that anyone should question it. Lee Sheppard, writing in Forbes, gets it too - laying out Apple's tax strategies in more detail. First, Sheppard, summarising:

"Apple’s brand halo is slipping. Silicon Valley’s well-known vanity and contempt for government are amply displayed in Apple’s tax figures. Apple, a consumer products company that sells beautifully designed gadgets, pays very little tax anywhere in the world, including the United States.

Apple AAPL +0.8% is playing fast and loose with consumers’ affection for its highly discretionary products, especially in Europe. It is ill-advised for any consumer products company not to pay tax where it sells products. Equally important, Apple’s tax avoidance is also testing the patience of strapped European governments that are looking for ways to get American multinationals to pay tax.
. . .
Even for a jaded tax lawyer used to hokey schemes to avoid taxation, Apple’s arrangements were surprising."

In short, Apple's Foreign sales, which make up 60 percent or so of Apple’s profits, are routed through these Irish subsidiaries -- and taxed nowhere at all.

Ah, says Eric Schmidt of Google, whose company has been subjected to similar scrutiny and criticism - but we are just doing what our shareholders tell us to do: it's our 'fiduciary duty,' he says. This is 'just capitalism," he says, and he's proud of Google's record stripping income out of Britain and many other countries and shoveling it into tax havens.

Eric Schmidt is "perplexed" as to what all the fuss is about.

As we have said on several occasions, Mr. Schmidt needs to get himself an education on tax, and what tax means. He might usefully turn to the Financial Times, and their columnist Philip Stephens, who has nailed it in a column entitled Why Google and Eric Schmidt really don’t care about tax:

thriving societies depend on more than strict adherence to the letter of the law. Communities work because citizens, institutions and, yes, even companies observe norms, conventions and mutual obligations that are nowhere on the statute book.

To suggest that each and every responsibility and duty must be codified in statute is to invite a lurch towards totalitarianism – the micromanagement by an overmighty state of every dimension of our myriad relationships.

There is no law (in Britain at least) that obliges me to join the back of a queue for, say, theatre tickets or a restaurant table rather than infiltrate myself at the front. I suspect, though, that Mr Schmidt would agree that queue-jumping is pretty antisocial.

To be legal, in this instance, is not to be right."

Which is just as we have been saying. Quite right.

And Mr. Stephens goes on: again nailing the issue beautifully.

"Then there is that fiduciary duty. Of course, companies should not pay “voluntary” tax.

But they do not face the binary choice posited by Mr Schmidt. Somewhere between charitable giving to the tax authorities and the setting up of Byzantine pyramids of shell companies in every tax haven known to man and womankind, there is what my lawyer friends call the wholly justifiable use of the tax code to protect shareholders.

The odd thing is that, at times, Google seems to understand that it ought to look beyond the letter of the law. The company boasts about its many “good works” in local communities. Presumably these are consistent with its fiduciary duty?

Which is, again, just as we have been saying. It exposes the fluffy illogic that Mr. Schmidt's arguments rest upon.

And then there's the matter of whether Google has been pushing right up against the boundaries of the law, potentially lying to the tax authorities and to the UK's parliament. There is no duty on any CEO anywhere to do that. Stephens summarises what Reuters found:

"When the company says that the billions in revenues garnered every year by its sales force in Britain are not liable to local tax because technically, the business is “closed” in Dublin, it frankly looks sleazy."

Which, again, is just what we have been saying.

And then there's the small matter of companies writing the tax laws.

Announcing the Financial Transparency Coalition

TJN is excited to bring you news of the launch of the Financial Transparency Coalition, overtaking the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development. Porter McConnell, the manager of the FTC, writes:

Announcing The Financial Transparency Coalition
By Porter McConnell

When the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development was created in 2009, only a handful of experts were following the issue of illicit financial flows. The subject was decipherable only to finance professionals taking advantage of tax havens, and a handful of civil society groups and finance journalists. Meanwhile, each year nearly a trillion dollars was being secreted out of developing countries, robbing them of revenue needed to build better lives for their citizens.

Over the last four years, a growing number of policymakers and citizens have begun to take heed. What good is pouring money into foreign assistance when ten times that amount leaves developing countries in corruption, crime, and corporate tax evasion, often arriving right back in rich country bank accounts? Meanwhile, activists in developing countries are pushing back against austerity, and demanding that foreign investors in oil, gas and mining and local elites pay their fair share.

Today, illicit financial flows are front page news:

• The US Senate is now investigating Apple’s tax avoidance schemes in Ireland and the US

• This spring, it was revealed that French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac had been secretly funneling money into a swiss bank account for years; he is being investigated for tax fraud.

• Global Witness recently uncovered evidence that Malaysia’s ruling party is selling off its country’s timber wealth for personal gain through shell corporations

These are exciting times, and we are changing with them:

As of today, we are changing our name to the Financial Transparency Coalition. We are a global group of experts, activists, and governments working together to blow away the smokescreen of financial secrecy and to build a more transparent financial system that works for everyone. It’s a simple premise, and it demands a simple name.

I joined the Coalition in March as part of the changes. In a decade in the development field, I heard the same message from colleagues in civil society groups from Malawi to Bangladesh:  foreign assistance is great, but managing our own domestic resources with transparency and accountability is better. In joining this truly global Coalition, I hope to honor their sentiment.

The Financial Transparency Coalition will build on the incredible foundation that the Task Force has created. We are continuing to invest in our global network of over 150 civil society groups, economists, and governments. Our growing global reach has allowed us to respond to political opportunities from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and we hope to expand this work in the coming year.

We are energized by recent signs of progress, but the battle is far from over. Developing countries lost an estimated $859 billion in illicit outflows in 2010 alone, up from 2009. The Coalition has committed to an ambitious work plan for this year and next, ranging from training journalists in developing countries on illicit financial flows to advocating that the U.S. Congress pass legislation to name the true owners of shell companies.

Be sure to check out our new website, FinancialTransparency.org, where we will continue to bring you the latest news on illicit financial flows and the resources you need to interpret it. We’ve consolidated most of our sections into one feed, to create the most informative experience possible.

And to witness for yourself the movement that we’ve created together, join us at the Financial Transparency Coalition annual conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on October 1-2, 2013.

Here is the press release:

Global Coalition Cracking Down on Illicit Financial Flows
The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development is today renamed the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC).

Formed in early 2009 with the goal of creating greater transparency and accountability in the global financial system in order to curb illicit financial flows (IFFs), the coalition is composed of six coordinating NGOs - Christian Aid, Eurodad, Global Financial Integrity, Global Witness, Tax Justice Network and Transparency International - as well as leading experts and a rapidly growing number of government representatives (on May 22 Belgium became the thirteenth country to join the FTC’s partnership panel). 

“When we started working together, the damage caused by illicit financial flows in developing countries was recognised by only a handful of people,” said the FTC’s new manager Ms. Porter McConnell. “Today, thanks in part to the work of our coalition, it is now widely understood that this kind of criminal activity is incredibly harmful to people in developing countries, where for every $1 received in aid about $10 is lost to illicit financial flows.“

“As an international coalition composed of partners bringing a great diversity of expertise, we are able to draw attention to the inter-connections between financial secrecy, corruption, money laundering, and systemic tax abuse. Each of our NGO coordinating members has played an essential role in our push for greater transparency and accountability in the international financial sector. We will now place increasing emphasis on the important work done by our regional advocates based in Africa, India and Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as our network of some 150 allied organizations around the globe in order to make the movement for financial transparency truly global.”

While applauding the tremendous recent developments in automatic disclosure of tax information and transparency measures in the banking sector, the FTC will continue to campaign until these changes are universal - starting with next month's G8 summit in Northern Ireland. In addition, the FTC will pursue campaigns for updated money laundering legislation that includes public registries of the real (or “beneficial”) owners of companies, and monitor the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting process to ensure that developing countries are included in the deliberations and proposals are based on independent research into possible reforms. We will also campaign internationally for greater transparency in corporate reporting with country-by-country reporting in all sectors.

In addition to working as it has done with the OECD, G8 and G20, the FTC plans to look at what contributions the United Nations and governments not yet actively involved can make to changing the agreements, treaties and laws that facilitate financial crimes. The coalition also welcomes participation from other bodies, including international corporations that understand the value for business of ensuring strong and financially stable markets in the developing world

“Now that these illicit flows have become front page news, and the general public wants more information about how  complex financial dealings can serve as a smokescreen for trafficking, tax evasion, and corruption, our coalition is adapting to speak to those audiences,” McConnell continued. “The FTC’s mission is to blow away that smokescreen of financial secrecy and complex loopholes, so that those who would use them to steal from citizens of developing countries are exposed and their harmful activities stopped. Cracking down on IFFs will also benefit citizens of richer countries, who are losing out on much-needed revenue and feeling the pinch of austerity budgets.”

NOTES:

G8 June 17-18 June, 2013: FTC members, including Porter McConnell, will be available to comment on secrecy jurisdictions, beneficial ownership, automatic exchange of financial information and money laundering as related to the G8 agenda..

The FTC’s recommendations are:

• Requiring corporations to report their sales, profits and taxes in each country where they operate 

• Making public the true or “beneficial” owners of companies, trusts, and foundations

• Requiring governments to collect and automatically exchange the tax information of non-resident individuals, companies and trust

• New regulations to curb the practice of transfer pricing

• Reforms to prevent money laundering by making it illegal for banks to accept the proceeds of international crime

Taken together, these reforms would help people in developing countries advance their economies and achieve greater financial stability and independence, as well as strengthening the global financial system.

For further information about the work of the Financial Transparency Coalition or to request interviews, please visit our website www.financialtransparency.org, or contact:

Dietlind Lerner: dlerner@financialtransparency.org, (+1) 202.577.3455
Nick Mathiason: nmathiason@financialtransparency.org (+44) 77.9934.8619
__________________________
The Financial Transparency Coalition addresses inequalities in the global financial system that penalize billions of people, and advocates for improved transparency and accountability.

For additional information please visit http://www.financialtransparency.org

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NFL Draft Heads to May

By pushing the NFL Draft back two weeks in 2014 to May 8th-10th, the league showed no favoritism to agents, prospective players, team personnel, or the fans--they all are negatively affected.

1. Agents

While no sympathy will be offered by the general public to agents, pushing the draft back extends the time during which they pick up expenses for their clients.  Traditionally, agents will absorb the costs of pre-draft training which will include combine prep, living expenses, travel, and an assortment of other "benefits."  Now, while powerhouse firms can easily assume the marginal additional expense, agents often spend between $10,000 and $20,000 on each client.

Obviously, for agents with fewer clients or alternative revenue streams, the additional weeks of "investment" in their clients becomes a burden.  Much like the summer of 2011 when the lockout extended the time during which agents covered their client's expenses, there was a clear distinction between what larger agencies were able to cover versus smaller firms or individual agents.

And, let's not pretend that poaching between agents doesn't occur.  This gives more time for agents to continue to recruit the clients of others.  [I won't even get into the role of runners and the impact that Jay-Z/Roc Nation could have during this period.]

2. Players

There is no real benefit to the potential draftable players, other than extended an already difficult time period.  Since the NFL is not changing the dates of the Combine, preparation for elite prospects will still start immediately after the bowl season.  There will still be a rush to sign with an agent, have them pick up training costs, and begin immediate preparation for the Combine.  These players will need to be in peak form for All-Star games, the Combine, perhaps for their school's Pro Days, and then there will still be another 6 weeks before the draft--more than enough time to slip, either physically or with a mistake.
 
And this extends the time that unsigned free agents have to patiently wait for teams to fortify their rosters with rookies (i.e. cheap labor) before they are able to resign with an NFL team.

3. NFL Personnel

Again, no one cares if a scout or assistant GM needs to go without sleep for another two weeks but this maneuver extends the time under which these individuals are under exorbitant amounts of pressure.  The extra two weeks provides no additional insight into a player's potential so there is no evaluative benefit to this additional time.

4. The Fans

Hey, look, another two weeks of your favorite draft prognosticator telling you who your favorite team will select in the 6th Round!  A colossal waste of time--unless you listen to Mike Mayock who, and I'm partial because he's a Boston College alum, is fantastic.

For the future, either the NFL Draft should revert back to April, or the League Year should also be pushed back--thereby moving the Combine, the start of free agency, and other calendar items. However, as it stands today, does anyone see any winners in this move?

Tweet, Post, Update, or Share Beyond Yourself

Take a minute to promote something another person is doing.  Our "Social Media Crazy World" gives us plenty of opportunities to promote ourselves, but we can just as easily take the time to share a Tweet or Facebook Update on a project that is important to someone else (even when there is nothing to gain personally).

Do not make it all "Hey, Look At Me" --- Make some of it "Hey, Look At Them!!!"

The more you promote others, the more others will promote you.  (Note... it often wont be the same people, as not everyone has it in them to shine the light on others.... it's okay.... promote them anyway!).

Have A Great Day.

thom singer

Quote of the day: Apple's taxes

From Lee Sheppard, a top U.S. tax expert:

The [Irish] holding company pays no tax to any government, and has not paid tax for five years. It claims tax residence nowhere.

Even for a jaded tax lawyer used to hokey schemes to avoid taxation, Apple’s arrangements were surprising.

Our quote of the day is the bit in bold. The article is excellent.

Top income shares vs. top marginal tax rates

From an important new paper on the NBER website by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Anthony Atkinson and Facundo Alvaredo, a rather striking graph (via Business Insider):

Just look at that slope.

The authors identify four key drivers of the massive increase in income of the top 1 percent:

• Tax policy, which has varied over time and differs across countries. Top tax rates have moved in the opposite direction from top income shares. 
• "A richer view of the labor market", where we contrast the standard supply-side model with one where pay is determined by bargaining and the reactions to top rate cuts may lead simply to a redistribution of surplus. Top rate cuts may lead managerial energies to be diverted to increasing their remuneration at the expense of enterprise growth and employment. 
• Capital income. Inherited wealth is, in Europe if not in the United States, making a return. 
• The correlation between earned income and capital income, which has substantially increased in recent decades in the United States. This has hardly been investigated.

There's lots more in that paper, of course. And now for an infographic, putting all of this into a different, more colourful perspective:


Source: Road to Riches: Tracking the Journey of the Global Superwealthy

If you're in Montreal today: a Canadian tax justice roundtable

From Canadians for Tax Fairness:

"Canadians for Tax Fairness and McGill University Law School are co-hosting a Public Round Table on Tax Justice and our first Tax Justice Research Symposium.  The public Round Table takes place at McGill University Faculty of Law, Chancellor Day Hall - 3644 Peel Street, Montreal on Wednesday, May 29 at 7:30pm, Montreal time. It will also be a live webcast. So follow this link to find out more.

The panellists include some of the most passionate and informed tax justice advocates in the world. Canadians for Tax Fairness President Diana Gibson will be joined by James Henry, the Chair of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice; John Christensen from UK’s Tax Justice Network; and Frédéric Zalac, from the CBC and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The following day, our Tax Justice Research Symposium brings together academic researchers, investigative journalists and campaigners to identify key research needed for effective campaigning on tax justice issues.   Topics include:

• Making corporations pay their fair share of taxes

• Provincial and municipal fiscal challenges and solutions

• Closing tax loopholes and tackling tax evasion.

Canadians for Tax Fairness is excited to be bringing these committed and creative people together.  It is one way we are working to build collaborative networks of researchers and campaigners who are committed to working for tax fairness.  But there is so much more to do. You can help support our work here."

Canadian Money Offshore

Canadians for Tax Fairness recently used Statistics Canada data to calculate that ultra-wealthy Canadians and large corporations now have $170 billion parked offshore – an all-time high.  Much of it is untracked and untaxed, resulting in billions of lost revenues. Click here for the top three tax havens.

A Swiss-US secrecy deal: justice for sale?

James S. Henry, writing in The American Interest, notes a rash of recent prosecutorial zeal in Washington recently, including attacks on whistleblowers, journalists, and even Tea Party Activists. He adds:

"All this prosecutorial zeal is a marked contrast to the failure to convict or criminally prosecute even a single senior banker for helping to produce and direct the post-2007 global financial crisis.

But now,  according to several credible reports, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, and Jacob Lew, the ex-Citi banker who now heads the US Treasury, may be on the brink of surpassing even this dubious track record. If these reports are to be believed, they may be on the brink of signing a “sweetheart” deal with Switzerland and its pirate bankers—with the indulgence of the White House and the enthusiastic support of some of Obama’s biggest guns on Wall Street."

It is true: there have been reports swirling around about a possible U.S.-Swiss deal.  While we don't know whether such a deal truly is imminent or what its terms might be, we do know that this moment in time - just when the global chips are up in the air on tax havens and there's everything to play for - is absolutely not the time to be releasing the pressure on Switzerland, the oldest, hardest nut in the entire global offshore menagerie. As he puts it:

"The world really is at an historic crossroads with respect to putting secrecy jurisdictions like Switzerland out of business once and for all."

Henry's article looks at the panorama here: the evolving FATCA architecture, changes at the OECD, events in the European Union, the Offshore Leaks scandal, and a possible $10 billionish fine to be shared among many Swiss banks, and he concludes:

"A DOJ-Swiss global truce would be of great benefit to the Swiss, but a huge mistake for the US and the EU—especially now.  This is true for several reasons.

• It would fly in the face of the dramatic progress that the world is finally making right now toward cracking down on secrecy havens in general and the "leader of the band" in particular. It would also risk dividing the US from the EU and the rest of the OECD, taking the pressure off Switzerland to reform.
• It overlooks the numerous loopholes that still exist even in FATCA, let alone global AIE, especially for secrecy jurisdictions like Switzerland with a long history of untrustworthy behavior.
   
• Even a $10 billion fine is a tiny fraction of Switzerland’s earnings from  doing “pirate banking” for the world’s elite, even from US citizens. And a global settlement would remove the one penalty that Swiss banks fear most—jail time.
   
• Any settlement still requires Swiss parliamentary approval, which could take years—even while it has already serves as a useful "whitewash" device.
• Most important—the impending DOJ - Swiss settlement, when looked at closely, has a strong odor of justice for sale. This is a clear case where powerful financial institutions, whose principle business is enabling tax dodging, kleptocracy, and money laundering for the world’s elite, would be permitted to commit these crimes over and over again for decades, and then walk away simply by paying fines, with the help of influential friends in high office on both sides of the Atlantic.  

This is just a taster: the long article is well worth reading. Whatever happens, the battle to get Switzerland to open up will be a long, hard slog, not least because opening up Switzerland's banking secrecy will almost certainly require approval by referendum, and the population of Switzerland currently supports banking secrecy and the facilitation of global crime very strongly.

Bit by bit, though, we will get there. Now is absolutely not the time to ease up the pressure.

To David Cameron: a letter from Africa

Zitto Kabwe MP, the chair of Tanzania's Public Accounts Committee, has written a letter (below) to UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

Dar es Salaam: Zitto Kabwe MP presents the letter to Prime Minister David Cameron to the British High Commissioner Dianna Melrose

The letter praises Britain for its "long and productive relationship" with Tanzania as a development partner, but then adds:

"This support is, however, dwarfed when the amount that Tanzania loses every year to tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance is taken into account
. . .
Some of this money is held in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. Tanzania and other developing countries in Africa have been finding it hard to tame this trend because of financial secrecy laws.
. . .

In my district of Kigoma, western Tanzania, the maternal mortality rate is 933 out of every 100,000 live births. This trend is largely contributed by poor health services. The Government is incapacitated to provide better health services because of the low revenue base. Tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions are one of the fundamental reasons for this."

He urges Cameron to make this fight against tax havens a priority for the G8 summit due in Northern Ireland in June, and to place aggressive sanctions against British tax havens, a call for much greater transparency.
 
We have just blogged the scale of the problem, in a new report from the African Development Bank and Global Financial Integrity, estimating net illicit financial outflows from Africa of up to $1.4 trillion between 1980 and 2009.


The full letter is reproduced below, and the original is here.

Letter to Rt Hon PM David Cameron

New report: Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, 1980-2009

From Inter Press Service:

"Over the past three decades, Africa has functioned as a “net creditor” to the rest of the world, the result of a cumulative outflow of nearly a trillion and a half dollars from the continent. (hat tip: @zittokabwe)

The new data comes from a report released jointly today by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Global Financial Integrity, entitled Illicit Financial Flows and the Problem of Net Resource Transfers from Africa: 1980-2009. It complements TJN's research published last year estimating that there is $21-32 trillion sitting offshore, effectively out of the reach of tax authorities.

The traditional thinking has always been that the West is pouring money into Africa through foreign aid and other private sector flows, without receiving much in return. This report confirms what we have noted many times in the past -- particularly in the context of the excellent book Africa's Odious Debts – that Africa has been a net creditor to the rest of the world for decades. The trouble is, of course, that Africa’s foreign assets remain hidden in secrecy jurisdictions and in the hands of tiny and wealthy African élites, while its foreign debts are public, shouldered by the broad population of  Africa through their governments.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the report reveals that the largest losers of net resource transfers are all resource-rich countries: the top five exporters of net resources are Nigeria, Libya, South Africa, Algeria and Angola. From the press release:

"The reportfinds that Africa suffered between US$597 billion and US$1.4 trillion in net outflows between 1980 and 2009 after adjusting net recorded transfers for illicit financial outflows.

“The resource drain from Africa over the last 30 years—almost equivalent to Africa’s current GDP—is holding back Africa’s lift-off,” said Prof. Mthuli Ncube, Chief Economist and Vice-President of the African Development Bank."

The report itself adds:

"Illicit financial flows are a global problem and will require concerted efforts from the international community and the involvement of individual African countries. Many international institutions—the African Development Bank, G20, UN, European Union Commission, African Union Commission, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Bank for International Settlements—have underlined the importance of a determined and collective approach to resolving the challenges posed by the global shadow economy, comprising tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, disguised corporations, trade mispricing, and money laundering. The chances of success will increase markedly if African governments themselves take domestic measures to address corruption, strengthen their anti- money laundering efforts, and also improve their investment codes. None of these is technically difficult, but they all require political will for success."

We would agree with all of that.

One more for our page entitled "Estimating the Price of Offshore."

New Sports Law Scholarship--Pt. 2

Recently published scholarship includes:

Ben Einbinder, What FINRA can learn from Major League Baseball, 12 PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL 333 (2012)

Harry Epstein & Daniel Gandert, The Court’s yellow card for the United States Soccer Federation: a case for implied antitrust immunity, 11 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 1 (2011)

David Falk, Note, Are professional sports leagues’ control over their member teams and owners in doubt?, 43 RUTGERS LAW JOURNAL 337 (2012)

Gabriel Feldman, Antitrust versus labor law in professional sports: balancing the scales after Brady v. NFL and Anthony v. NBA, 45 UC DAVIS LAW REVIEW 1221 (2012)

Heather M. Field, Throwing the red flag: challenging the NFL’s lessons for American business, 38 JOURNAL OF CORPATION LAW 381 (2013)

Nicholas Fram & T. Ward Frampton, A union of amateurs: a legal blueprint to reshape big-time college athletics, 60 BUFFALO LAW REVIEW 1003 (2012)

Nabeel Gadit, Note, An end to the NCAA’s exploitation of former student-athletes: how O’Bannon v. NCAA highlights the need for an inalienable reversionary interest in the right of publicity for former student-athletes, 30 CARDOZO ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 347 (2012)

Matthew Gallagher, The changing face of the “sport of kings”: a brief history of thoroughbred horse racing in the United States, its recent decline, and the legal implications surrounding racing partnerships and syndicates in the current landscape, 19 SPORTS LAWYERS JOURNAL 275 (2012)

Robert M. Gallman, Comment, Enhancement or recovery? The scientific and legal paradox of performance-enhancing substances, 15 SMU SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY LAW REVIEW495 (2012)

Ephraim Glatt, Defining “sport” under Title IX: cheerleading, Biediger v. Quinnipiac University, and the proper scope of agency deference, 19 SPORTS LAWYERS JOURNAL 297 (2012)

Samantha Glazer, Note, Sporting chance: litigating sexism out of the Olympic intersex policy, 20 JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICYY 545 (2012)

Robert A. Gottfried, Reasonable relocation: antitrust implications of restrictions on movement of professional sports teams, 19 SPORTS LAWYERS JOURNAL 109 (2012)

Jeremy P. Gove, Note, Three and out: the NFL’s concussion liability and how players can tackle the problem, 14 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT & TECHNOLOGY LAW 649 (2012)

Linda S. Greene, Head football coaches: ending the discourse of privilege, 2 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY115 (2012)

Nathaniel Grow, Decertifying players unions: lessons from the NFL and NBA lockouts of 2011, 15 VANDERBILT JOUNRNAL & TECHNOLOGY LAW 473 (2013)

Rockwell T. Gust IV, Comment, The California Workers’ Compensation Act: the death knell of NFL players’ “concussion” case?, 44 UNIVERSITY TOLEDO LAW LAW REVIEW 245 (2012)

David Haddock et al., League structure & stadium rent seeking—the role of antitrust revisited, 65 FLORIDA LAW REVIEW 1 (2013)

Courtney D. Hall, Comment, Fishing for all-stars in a time of global free agency: understanding FIFA eligibility rules and the impact on the U.S. Men’s National Team, 23 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 191 (2012)

Tim Hance, Note, Threading American Needle: defining a narrow relevant market for rule of reason analysis in sports antitrust cases, 11 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 247 (2011)

Angela J. Hattery, They play like girls: gender and race (in)equity in NCAA sports, 2 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY247 (2012)

Marcus Hauer, Note, The constitutionality of public university bans of student-athlete speech through social media, 37 VERMONT LAW REVIEW 413 (2012)

Jeremy D. Heacox, Comment, Wisconsin Legislature employs halftime adjustment: how Wisconsin’s “new” Indian mascot law changes the outlook for future challenges to the use of discriminatory nicknames, mascots, and logos in Wisconsin schools, 22 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 651 (2012)

Diane Heckman, Batter up: a look at the Supreme Court’s lineup, including the interaction with the new chief umpire on the bench, as Title IX marks its fortieth anniversary, 22 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW461 (2012)

Kris Helge, The success of a nation’s soccer team: a bellwether regarding a nation’s electronic information infrastructure, the legal regulations that govern the infrastructure, the resulting citizen-trust in its government and its e-readiness in Nigeria, the DPRK, China, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and the United States, 39 NORTHERN KENTUCKY LAW REVIEW 467 (2012)

Aishlin P. Hicks, Note, Unsportsmanlike conduct: female sportswriters as targets for sexual harassment, 23 HASTINGS WOMEN’S LAW JOURNAL 219 (2012)

Joseph M. Hnylka, California drops the ball: the lack of a clear approach to recklessness in sport injury litigation, 11 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 77 (2011)

Justin R. Hunt, Note, To share or not to share: revenue sharing structures in professional sports, 13 TEXAS REVIEW OF ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS LAW 139 (2012)

John Imhoff, Comment, Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens, 56 N.Y. LAW SCHOOL LAW REVIEW 1619 (2011-2012)

Trevor Jack, Note, Blue field of dreams: a BCS antitrust analysis, 39 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY LAW 165 (2013)

Aiden Johnson, Note, Update: The curious case of Oscar Pistorius & Caster Semenya, 14 TEXAS REVIEW OF ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS LAW 89 (2012)

Kendall K. Johnson, Enforceable fair and square: the right of publicity, unconscionability, and NCAA student-athlete contracts, 19 SPORTS LAWYERS JOURNAL 1 (2012)

Cassandra Jones, Book Note, Reviewing Deborah Brake, Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women’s Sports Revolution, 22 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 613 (2012)

Richard T. Karcher, Broadcast rights, unjust enrichment, and the student-athlete, 34 CARDOZO LAW REVIEW 107 (2012)

Richard T. Karcher, Redress for a no-win situation: using liquidated damages in comparable coaches’ contracts to assess a school’s economic damage from the loss of a successful coach, 64 S.C. LAW REVIEW 429 (2012)

Joseph B. Kenney, Comment, Showing on-field racism the red card: how the use of tort law and vicarious liability can save the MLS from joining the English Premier League on racism row, 20 JEFFREY S. MOORAD SPORTS LAW JOURNAL 247 (2013)

Jordan I. Kobritz & Jeffrey F. Levine, Don Fehr leads the NHLPA: does the NHL have anything to fear?, 11 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL178 (2011)

Jordan I. Kobritz et al., Don Fehr trades his ball for a puck: will he continue to score?, 19 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 521 (2012)

Shane Kotlarsky, What’s all the noise about: did the New York Yankees violate fans’ First Amendment rights by banning vuvuzelas in Yankee Stadium?, 20 JEFFREY S. MOORAD SPORTS LAW JOURNAL 35 (2013)

Katherine Kraschel, Note, Transcending space in women’s only spaces: Title IX cannot be the basis for exclusion, 35 HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW & GENDER 463 (2012)

Liz Larson, Note, More than just spelling: How differences in international labor laws create barriers to expansion of the American National Sports Leagues into Europe intercollegiate sports, 11 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 288 (2011)

Benjamin I. Leibovitz, Comment, Avoiding the sack: how Nebraska’s departure from the Big 12 changed college football and what athletic conferences must do to prevent defection in the future, 22 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 675 (2012)

Amanda Leone, Comment, Buying influence in college athletics: how much does it cost to put in your two cents?, 23 SETON HALL JOURNAL OF SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW 221 (2013)

Michael H. LeRoy, An invisible union for an invisible labor market: college football and the union substitution effect, 2012 WISCONSIN LAW REVIEW 1077 (2012)

Michael H. LeRoy, Federal jurisdiction in sports labor disputes, 2012 UTAH LAW REVIEW 815 (2012)

Clinton R. Long, Promoting competition or preventing it? A competition law analysis of UEFA’s financial fair play rules, 23 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 75 (2012)

Joseph M. Long, A contextual study of the non-profit duty of obedience: the National Collegiate Athletic Association, 23 SETON HALL JOURNAL OF SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW 125 (2013)

James P. Looby, Reasonable accommodations for high school athletes with disabilities: preserving sports while providing access for all, 19 SPORTS LAWYERS JOURNAL 227 (2012)

Brian Lovell, Note, Eighteen years old and ready for driving, cigarettes and war, but not basketball: why the NBA is committing a foul on the age eligibility rule, 26 JOURNAL OF CIVIL RIGHTS & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 415 (2012)

Rohani Mahyera, Comment, Saving cricket: a proposal for the legalization of gambling in India to regulate corrupt betting practices in cricket, 26 EMORY INT’L LAW REVIEW 365 (2012)

Heather M. Mandelkehr, Comment, When toning shoes strengthen nothing more than likelihood of lawsuit: why the Federal Trade Commission needs guidelines regarding proper substantiation of fitness advertisements, 20 JEFFREY S. MOORAD SPORTS LAW JOURNAL 297 (2013)

Samuel G. Mann, Note, In name only: how Major League Baseball’s reliance on its antitrust exemption is hurting the game, 54 WILLIAM & MARY LAW REVIEW587 (2012)

Michael LAW Martin, It’s not a foul unless the ref blows the whistle: how to step up enforcement of the UAAA and SPARTA, 19 SPORTS LAWYERS JOURNAL 209 (2012)

James Masteralexis et al., Enough is enough: the case for federal regulation of sport agents, 20 JEFFREY S. MOORAD SPORTS LAW JOURNAL 69 (2013)

James T. Masteralexis & Steve McKelvey, This tweet sponsored by…: the application of the new FTC Guides to the social media world of professional athletes, 11 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 222 (2011)

Alfred D. Mathewson, Remediating discrimination against African-American female athletes at the intersection of Title IX and Title VI, 2 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY 295 (2012)

Amy C. McCormick and Robert A. McCormick, Race and interest convergence in NCAA sports, 2 WAKE FOREST JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY 17 (2012)

Eric M. McGregor, Comment, Hooray beer!?: how the reemergence of alcohol sales at campus stadiums will affect universities, 23 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 211 (2012)

Ryan McLaughlin, Note, Warning! Children’s brains are in danger: legislative approaches to creating uniform return-to-play standards for concussions in youth athletics, 22 INDIANA INTERNATIONAL & COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW 131 (2012)

Attend Meetings If You Want Opportunity - Stay Home If Not Interested

When attending a conference do not underestimate the power of the human element. There is sometimes a feeling that it is "un-cool" to admit to wanting to network while attending an event, but this is where you find the value at live conferences, trade shows, conventions, and seminars.

When I speak at an event I often am making a case for connecting with people in a social media crazy world.  This is not to undermine the power of digital and mobile tools, but to make sure we do not forget to look others in the eye.  

If the purpose of a meeting was only to gain information then we would not need to convene. While I love experiencing the presentation of a GREAT speaker, those are rare in our day of everyone being an expert (regardless of their ability to speak).  Too few speakers have the ability inspire an audience to learn from their talk.  

Reading a white paper or watching a recorded video on your computer could transmit the data (if learning was the only purpose), but sharing all aspects of a conference with peers is how we find value in meetings.  The serendipity of "hallway conversations" can hardly be duplicated in an online chat box, and is often where people get their deepest learning moments.

While attending the luncheon at a conference recently I had a debate about the power of face-to-face meetings and networking with a guy who was convinced that the day of the meeting was behind us.  He was opinionated, but very well informed.  He was at the event himself, but seemed torn by why others would attend.

Our conversation was a respectful discussion, although we disagreed.  Over the next few days we hung around together often and became friends.  One night in the bar he was telling me how he got his current job (a great one, I might add).  Turns out he met his boss at a conference similar to the one we were attending.  I inquired if it was really a "live meeting" that lead to his dream job?

He smiled and said, "I guess meetings are a thing of the past, except for those who want opportunity".

What a great line: 

Meetings are a thing of the past, except for those who want opportunity.

When you attend you next live event, do not pretend that people do not matter.  Nothing matters more.  Take the time to meet people and get to know them.  You never know what can happen with the right connection.  However, if you do not connect then you can be fairly certain that there will be nothing.

Remember:  All opportunities come from people! 

Have A Great Day

thom singer

Thom Singer is known as "The Conference Catalyst". He works with meeting planners and conference organizers to set the tone for a meeting. His presentations educate, inspire and motivate attendees to engage deeper in the event and make meaningful connections.  http://www.conferencecatalyst.com 

www.ConferenceCatalyst.com