Sunday, May 3, 2020

Legal Aspects of International Lagal Trade and Enterprise

Question: Discuss about the Legal Aspects of International Lagal Trade and Enterprise. Answer: Introduction: The legal aspects of International Trade introduce the complex international legal framework that enables the individuals, business organisation and the governments for exchanging the products and the services legally and successfully. According to the opinion of Barker et al. (2009), the international Trades legal aspects assist to offer a managerial perspectives and awareness regarding the legal implications. The specific action often assisted the Australian International Trade measures to increase its accessibility in the internal market segment. The study attempts to identify the legal aspects of international trade for an organisation which has the business operation in Australia. Considering the fact, the research associate has chosen the company, BHP Billiton Ltd., which is a multinational mining, metals and petroleum company. The regulatory framework of Australian government and the trade union has been identified in the current study to scrutinize the operational impact on t he company. Furthermore, identification of the treaties, conventions and the other agreements that have direct impact on the products and services offered by the multinational firm has been analysed in the present research. Body: BHP Billiton is a Melbourne based global mining company. The minerals segment of the company focusing on copper, coal, iron core and nickel in the Australian business that includes operations in Queensland, Westen Australia, South Australia and the New South Wales. In the addition, the operational capability and the technical expertise of BHP Billiton are the petroleum business that includes exploration, production and the development in the USA, Trinidad and Australia. As per the report of the Australian statistics, the number of employees of the firm was 43,238 in 2012, 46,892 in 2013 and 47,044 in 2014 (www.statista.com, 2016). According to the opinion of Cahoy (2008), the firm has a talented, dedicated and skilled workforce to contribute a better-standardised output. It has been speculated that due to some employment issues the company has reduced globally the number of employees, which was 42,829 in 2015 (www.statista.com, 2016). The global headquarters of BHP Billiton is locate d in Melbourne, Australia and London, UK. Fair trading rule both for the business and the customers are maintained by the statutory framework managed by the Australian government. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) indicate that BHP Billiton has to offer better quality products with affordable price for drawing the attention of the customers (www.bhpbilliton.com, 2016). Considering the words of Castles (2013), the firm could not produce below quality product range with low price for achieving the customers attention. This is also one of the tactics to avoid the overall tax payment. Thus, the government provides some strict rules and legislation for maintaining the product quality of the organisation. It has been identified that the Australian government has faced a budget deficit in the year of 2014 and 2015. The tax payers of Australia took advantage of "pay as you earn" introduced by the Australian Government (Barker, 2009). The business organisation also takes advantage of this particular law and in vests money on different properties. In this scenario, the government has tightened the rules to increase the number of the payers in Australia. Thus, the government of Australia instructs that the business organisations operating in the country have to pay 30% corporate tax depending on the income. Over the last three years, the Australian Parliament has passed a set of rule and legislation to constrict the rules of the income tax transfer pricing. Considering the opinion of Castles (2013), when a transaction occurs it needs to be made arms length price, to avoid any duplicity. This rule has been made by the Australian government. The law states that the pricing needs to be at par with the market rate. If any deviation occurs, the party would be charged. The recent trend shows that MNCs headquartered in Australia is doing this sort of unethical practice to avoid tax burden. To mitigate this discrepancy, the Australian government has imposed the pricing strategy. Hence, the prices charged have a direct impact on the level of the profits of each entity of the multinational organisation. Therefore, Richardson et al. (2015) stated that the BHP Billiton has to pay different amounts of tax in the respective countries. On the other hand, by applying the arms length principle, it is required for BHP Billiton to price the intra-group products and services between the associated business parties for contributing to the Australian economy. Considering the view of Barker et al. (2009), the concept of arms length transaction ensures both the parties who are involved in the deal and controls the parties as a multinational group. It has been observed that Australia has a national privacy legislation, which is supervised by the Office of the Australian Information Commission (OAIC). It regulates the operational activities of the business and store the personal information and communication (www.austrade.gov.au, 2016). BHP Billiton has to maintain the OAIC legislation in the workplace. Adding to this the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), it protects and manage the ecological community through offering a legal framework. The BHP Billiton CSG maintains the up-to-date pra ctices to adhere the EPBC Act. As per the opinion of Castles (2013), success in exploration, development and the other production activities is reinforced by the effective maintenance of the environmental rules. The management of BHP Billiton has managed to introduce certain systems that are entirely aligned with the legal treaties. The brand has also imposed effective controlling measures and operations that justify the viability of the implemented systems. Supporting this Richardson et al. (2015) stated that BHP has a sensitive planning and the effective project design to fulfil the requirement of the Australian Government treaties. Before approving the national environmental and cultural concerns, Australian Government Legislation governs the assessment process of the multinational organisation. Furthermore, the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) offers treaties for the imbalanced contract agreements. The consumer right is administered by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the State and Territory consumer protection agencies of Australia (www.austrade.gov.au, 2016). Moreover, BHP Billiton has entered into a contract with Brazils Federal Attorney General, where the ma nagement claims to provide a compensation for the damage caused for the Samarco tragedy. Conclusion: The Australian government has made a sustainable path to balance the budget by incorporating several corporate for the business organisation. The government has introduced several responsible choices to ensure the overall impact of the new business policies. The mining firm, BHP Billiton adhered to all the rules measured by the Australian government to make the business execution easy. Moreover, adherence to Product liability regulation regulates the product safety of the firm, so that BHP can uphold the sustainable position in the Australian marketplace. References: 2016, S. (2016) Number of employees at BHP Billiton from 2012 to 2015, by region*. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274234/number-of-employees-at-bhp-billiton-by-region/ (Accessed: 24 August 2016). Barker, R.M., Cobb, A.T. and Karcher, J. (2009) The legal implications of electronic document retention: Changing the rules, Business Horizons, 52(2), pp. 177186. Billiton, B. (2016) BHP Billiton results. Available at: https://www.bhpbilliton.com/ (Accessed: 24 August 2016). Cahoy, D.R. (2008) Treating the legal side effects of cipro: are evaluation of compensation rules for government takings of patent rights, American Business Law Journal, 40(1), pp. 125175. Castles, M. (2013) Australia: Client CapacityInadequate rules and unpalatable choices, Legal Ethics, 16(2), pp. 367369. Commission, A.T. (2016) Australian business and environment laws. Available at: https://www.austrade.gov.au/International/Invest/Guide-to-investing/Running-a-business/Understanding-Australian-business-regulation/Australian-business-and-environment-laws (Accessed: 24 August 2016). Richardson, G., Taylor, G. and Lanis, R. (2015) The impact of financial distress on corporate tax avoidance spanning the global financial crisis: Evidence from Australia, Economic Modelling, 44(12), pp. 4453. Taylor, G. and Richardson, G. (2014) Incentives for corporate tax planning and reporting: Empirical evidence from Australia, Journal of Contemporary Accounting Economics, 10(1), pp. 115.

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