Canadian Legal System - Assignment Example

Lecture 1 Foreign investors in Canadian markets must be acquainted with the international laws governing their trade and commerce as well as the local trade laws of the Canadian government. The importance of international law becomes more apparent as countries are globalized and as legal issues extends to an international scale (FDFA, 2007). International law is loosely defined as the body of rules and norms that regulate activities carried on beyond the legal boundaries of a single state. It regulates international relationships (a) between states and states, (b) between states and persons, and (c) between persons and persons (Shaw, 2008). International laws cover different legal aspects such as human rights, trade and commerce, environment, transportation and telecommunications, and prohibition of the use of force in conflict resolution. Canadian legal system is derived from common laws and civil laws with the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedom as the system’s primary legal references. Canadian legal system is implemented by two major divisions which are the federal division and the provincial division. Canadian laws are compilation of federal and provincial laws and regulations, municipal by-laws, and the statutes and principles instituted by federal and/or provincial regulatory and licensing bodies. International laws on the other hand are derived from various sources. Among these sources are the English common laws and traditions of US and UK, civil code traditions of EU, Mexico, China, and Japan, theological legal systems commonly employed by Islamic countries, Jews, and Hindus, and other legal systems such as customary laws and socialist laws. Once foreign investors are familiar with these legal systems, investing in Canadian market or establishing a business within Canada’s political domain is easy. Canada allows foreign investors to own sole proprietorships, engage in partnerships, own shares in Canadian corporations, be involve in foreign corporation incorporated in a foreign jurisdiction, and to join in joint ventures. Foreign corporations operating branch offices in Canada or those incorporating Canadian subsidiary corporation have had issues on taxation. Local corporations incorporating outside the country experience issues on tax laws and destination regulations. Reference Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. International Law. August 28, 2007. Accessed on April 17, 2009 from http://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home/topics/intla.html Shaw, Malcolm. International Law. Cambridge University Press. 2008. 1 – (a) Two of the most recent trends in global retailing that drives growth and progress of the industry are outsourcing business process on cheaper work-forces and cheaper technology. Outsourcing business processes, particularly sales effort and production to cheaper workforces allows retailers to sell more for less expensive operations or production costs (Modarress & Ansari, 2007). With the numerous new entrants in the technology market, access to cheaper technology allows retailers to increase the quality of their product for a cheaper manufacturing cost. (b) Recently, the marketplace is getting (a) more dynamic as their (b) buying and bargaining powers gets stronger. Competition in the retailing industry is strong as barrier for new entrants is low. Because of the numerous products consumers can choose from, its buying power and bargaining power increased as well. (c) China is a promising market for retailers because of the immense population of the country and its less exposure to foreign retailing companies. 2 – (a) I think Starbucks uses stories to give appeal to their retail products. The more people are inclined to listen to the personal accounts publicized by the company for the unique coffee experience, the more it gets “believers” to keep its business alive (BusinessWeek, 2007). (b) A potential threat for Starbucks is the emergence of numerous competitors – both local and international – that offers the same coffee experience at a significantly lower price. A potential opportunity for Starbucks is diversification of products to include other products aside from coffee which patrons would want to have along with their coffees. (3) (a) Virtual retail companies often do not have the structure traditional companies use. However, this does not mean to say that structural management could not be used in virtual retail organizations because these types of organizations still follow some forms of structure although far different from the structures used by traditional companies. (b) Traditional retail environments are different from virtual retail environment in many ways. In the most general sense, the organizational structure of virtual retail environments is totally different from the ones used by traditional retail environments. (c) Some of the various differences is the number of people operating the business, the type of management style used, the leniency of the organizational structure of virtual retail environment compared to the rigid structure of traditional retail environments. (4) (a) internal influence on real space retailing includes production and operational costs. The same can be said on cyber space retailing but puts considerably less value on the operational cost because of the relatively cheaper expense on operations in cyberspace compared to renting, leasing, or building a place to display products and goods. External influence on real space and cyber space retailing are the same as prices for both retail approaches are affected by competition, style and trend, and other market indicators. (b) I think the internal and external influences real space retailers consider are (internal) cost of goods sold, operations expense, overhead expense, salaries and wages, rents and leases, (external) competition, market pricing trend, and economic condition. (c) Ideally, retail products sold in cyberspace are to be priced lower than on real space because of the omission of other operations-related expenses. Cyberspace retailers consider such factors as (internal) cost of goods sold, overhead expenses, salaries and wages, website development and maintenance, shipping costs (external) competition, market pricing trend, and economic condition. (d) Cyberspace and real space retailers include tax considerations in pricing their goods. Shipping expense is usually taken into account in pricing goods sold in cyberspace. Even with these two factors included, goods sold in cyberspace are considerably cheaper compared to goods sold in real space. (e) The influence exerted by the internet decreases the price of competition for retailers because the expenses associated in purchasing the product like gas expense are cut when shopping online. Technically, a decrease in the cost of goods sold should also signal a proportional decrease in the price of goods for sale. 5 – I bought an iPhone in an Apple Online store with an instruction to have my name etched on it as advertised in their site. I paid the appropriate amount and was turned off when the product that reached me did not have an etching of my name on it. I have to call the customer service hotline twice before they were able to replace my unit with the one I specified. Modarress, B., and Ansari, A. (Summer 2007). The economic, technological, and national security risks of offshore outsourcing. Journal Of Global Business Issues, 1 (2). 165-175 BusinessWeek. April 9, 2007. Saving Starbucks’ Soul. Marketing. BusinessWeek. Accessed on April 17, 2009 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_15/b4029070.htm Read More