Effective administrative cooperation and mutual assistance in direct taxation are crucial for the proper application of tax laws and for combating tax fraud and evasion in the EU. However, these collaborative efforts face legal and practical challenges, particularly due to the internal market and cross-border mobility of taxpayers and businesses. This paper reviews the legal structure established by Council Directive 2011/16/EU and related instruments, and examines recent develop-ments and proposals to enhance said cooperation – including automatic information exchange, joint audits, tax ruling exchanges, and mutual assistance in claim recovery. It also explores the potential benefits and drawbacks of extending cooperation to non-EU jurisdictions and the role of the OECD and other international organisa-tions in promoting the cooperation in question. The paper concludes that while significant progress has been made, some challenges need still to be addressed. It recommends measures to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of said coopera­tion while respecting the rights and interests of taxpayers and Member States.

The history of laws regulating types of companies in Vietnam was born later than in other countries, only when Vietnam implemented the “DOI MOI” (renewal) process according to the market economy in 1986. The laws have been supplemented over time to promote and encourage investors to contribute capital to establish various business organisations. However, increasingly diverse and rich economic relations pose urgent needs for the law, on the one hand, to recognise and expand the freedom of business of its subjects, and on the other hand, to anticipate, recog-nise, and protect new associations that create unregulated types of business enti-ties. Only then can the law regulating types of companies in Vietnam establish a legal basis to promote deep integration into current international economic activities. This article analyses, evaluates, and recommends theoretical and practical issues on the laws regulating the types of companies in Vietnam.

The International Labour Organization is a specialised organisation of the United Nations. Regarding membership, the founding agreement provides for the possibility of a Member State withdrawing. These regulations do not include detailed stages of the procedure, but they indicate specific actions that should be taken by the state to withdraw from the ILO. With the end of the withdrawal procedure, the Member State should be prepared for the emerging (political, economic, strategic) consequences of such a procedure. Importantly, the statutory provisions regarding the procedure for withdrawing from the ILO have been implemented many times, with examples being the breaking of the membership ties by South Africa or Indonesia.

Primary elections are a new element in the ‘periodical table’ of Hungarian politics and were already used for the selection candidates in some instances in 2019. In preparation for the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2022, a cooperation scheme is taking shape among opposition parties, involving all currently decisive players on that political side. Entailing a scope broader than ever before, this cooperation also involves the organisation of primary elections for selecting the candidate for the Prime Minister and the candidates in single-member constituencies. The primaries are organised by the six opposition parties running together in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election. If held, it would be the first countrywide primary election in Hungary. This study looks beyond the specific solutions that may be applied in relation to the upcoming primaries. It provides a working definition of the term itself, briefly reviews the international and Hungarian antecedents of primaries, also outlining the reasons why this solution came to the fore in Hungary. Then the study sets out to predict the ‘evolutionary trajectory’ along which primary elections will become institutionalised here, spelling out the potential phases of development. In the latter context, this paper touches on the private law and public law implications of primaries and raises a scenario in which government parties also begin to apply this new political tool.

These days, Banks are obliged to comply with a broad scope of the regulations and binding laws and this creates numerous challenges for those organisations. These challenges relate, particularly, to international banks operating in parallel within complex legislative, regulatory, social, political etc. realities. This article is a concise presentation of selected tasks brought about by the compliance function in banks that at the same time are the references for the internal norms created within those organisations.

The aim of this paper is to address the issue of implementation of international legal instruments regarding cybercrime into the Polish criminal law. Effective protection against cybercrime requires, among other things, the establishment of an appropriate legal framework. Criminal prohibitions of a deterrent effect, which are a part of this framework, seem of particular importance. In Europe such a set of rules is provided for in the instruments of the Council of Europe as well as in the European Union instruments. As a member of both these international organisations, Poland is obliged to implement their standards. The author’s aim is to analyse whether and, if so, to what extent the current Polish criminal legislation is in line with European requirements. The process of implementation of these norms has expanded in the span of over 10 years and was initiated even before Poland accessed the European Union. Polish criminal law, however, is not yet fully compliant with international requirements on cybercrime. This paper is an attempt to identify some areas of the criminal law which are still to be amended as well as to submit some solutions de lege ferenda.

These standards were introduced at four international organizations and supranational associations: 1) the European Union; 2) the Council of Europe; 3) the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 4) the Commonwealth of Independent States. The article states that the key reason for the introduction of standards for the regulation of lobbying at the international level was considerable corruption in the adoption of legal acts. It is concluded that latent and unregulated lobbying can seriously undermine public confidence in the institution of government, especially in the countries of the so-called “new democracy”. International regulation of lobbying takes the form of resolutions, procedural rules, guidelines, recommendations and model legislation. Notably, the first steps towards international regulation of lobbying were taken by the institutions of the European Union. Today EU standards for the regulation of lobbying is based on a series of articles set out in the EU-founding treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. EU standards for the regulation of lobbying influence not only the EU Member States, but it also extends to EU Partner Countries. Significant steps in the implementation of international standards for the regulation of lobbying are being constantly carried out by the Council of Europe. The establishment of CE standards for the regulation of lobbying is reflected in the activity of statutory bodies of the Council of Europe and its semi-autonomous bodies. In recent years a lot of work on the strengthening of international standards for lobbying regulation has been done by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. To help address the concerns with transparency and integrity in lobbying, the OECD Member Countries adopted in 2010 a Recommendation on Principles for Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying as guidance to decision-makers on how to promote good governance in lobbying. Another international organization, which began to regulate actively the practice of lobbying is the Commonwealth of Independent States. In order to intensify the work concerning legislative regulation of lobbying in the member countries of the CIS, at the XXII Plenary Session of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS member states the Resolution No. 22-16 of November 15, 2003 was adopted, which approved a model law “On regulation of lobbying activity in state authorities”.

The publication explores the phenomenology and content of ‘soft law’ in the international
and national law and reveals the designation of ‘soft law’ in protecting the electoral rights of the citizens. ‘Soft law’ is intended to mean optional international documents, most of
which are resolutions of the intergovernmental organisations containing statements, commitments, guidelines, common positions or statements on policy or intentions. ‘Soft law’ documents are usually adopted by the statutory bodies of the international organisations on issues that reflect new problems, tendencies or trends in the field of electoral law, for which there is no political will or the accordance of all the member states in the form of a classical international treaty. When it comes to the content, the ‘soft law’ documents are all kinds of statements, obligations, guidelines, codes of conduct, codes of ethics, guidelines and standards, common positions or statements of policy or intentions.