درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present article aims to examine the risk of host governments’ interference with the property of foreign investors (expropriation) in the petroleum industry. Host states have the police power to make regulatory changes. The ‘police power’ is defined as the inherent and plenary power of a sovereign to make all laws necessary and proper to preserve the public security, order, health, morality, and justice. It is a fundamental power essential to government, and it cannot be surrendered by the legislature or irrevocably transferred away from government. The government can interfere with the contract and change the contract terms or may even directly take the investment. This is the main reason for international petroleum disputes and international arbitration practice has addressed such risk. For this purpose, the concept of property and compensable property rights under international law are of great significance. Indeed, expropriation conveys a deprivation of a property owner of this property. This paper assesses the concept of expropriation, the international legal requirements for a lawful expropriation, and then, analyses the relevant international arbitral awards in petroleum jurisprudence.

Protecting shareholders’ rights today is considered a practical competitive function at the level of capital markets, which is based on transparent and coherent actions within the framework of laws and regulations. In other words, the more the level of company operations is based on regulatory and legal procedures, the more level of protection of shareholders’ interests can be expected to be observed more uniformly by companies. This study aims to design a forensic accounting model focusing on protecting shareholders’ rights of petrochemical companies. The collection tool based on the analytical nature of the research consisted of two parts: evaluation checklist and matrix checklists. In fact, in order to promote the level of innovation in the relationship between forensic processes and quantitative accounting to collect data for the development of the forensic accounting model, through meta-synthesis and Delphi analysis, the components and propositions of forensic accounting were determined in the qualitative section, focusing on the protection of shareholders’ rights; then based on the matrix checklist, the most influential research propositions were determined through the analysis of fuzzy networks. The research results in the qualitative part indicate the existence of three components of structural mechanisms; it was the meta-structural and legalization of forensic accounting to protect shareholders’ rights, which was approved in the form of 18 statements. Further, the results in the quantitative part concerning the analysis of fuzzy networks were identified. The most effective component of forensic accounting in the protection of shareholders’ rights was structural mechanisms, and the most influential statements of forensic accounting in the protection of 

The present article aims to argue indirect expropriation in international petroleum agreements and to analyse the response of international arbitrations. In particular, international arbitral awards by the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, the Yukos case as an Energy Charter Treaty Arbitration and certain North American Free Trade Agreement cases have been examined. The recent trend shows that taking of foreign investors’ property may take place not only through legislation or nationalisation but also by indirect methods that can have the same effect as direct expropriation. Indirect expropriation does not necessarily require transfer of legal title from the international oil company to the host state. Hence, it is difficult to make a distinction between legitimate regulation and measures, which are tantamount to expropriation with the payment of compensation. The identification of an indirect expropriation is complex and depends upon the examination of the legitimate expectations of the investor concerning enjoyment of its investment. Host governments may employ different methods to achieve what amounts to direct taking, but without acknowledging it as such, to avoid legal consequences of expropriation and then payment of compensation.