Legal Environment Analysis Guidelines

1. Legal Environment Analysis Guidelines

This is a written assignment. It needs to be 3 pages long, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12, 1.25 margins.

The assignment is due on Sunday, February 13, by 11:59pm.

To submit it, use the “Legal Environment Analysis” Turnitin link that you will find by accessing the Assignments link in Blackboard.

Each individual has to turn in one written assignment.

In this assignment, you need to analyze the legal environment of the country for which you signed up in the beginning of the semester (please pay particular attention to this guideline; you cannot receive credit for this assignment if you use a different country for your analysis). In your paper, make sure you:

1. Describe the legal environment of the country, making specific references to

– the rule of law (to what extent is the country governed by law as opposed to arbitrary decisions of individual government officials)

and

– laws that govern foreign direct investment (for example, are there provisions to attract foreign direct investment, such as tax incentives, most-favored-nation treatment, dispute resolution fora; or provisions that restrict foreign direct investors such as high local content requirements or currency exchange restrictions).

2. Discuss challenges and opportunities for American investors posed by the legal environment.
3. Based on the challenges and opportunities you have identified through your research, formulate two recommendations, with your supporting arguments, to an American investor to successfully navigate the country’s legal environment.

1. Grading Criteria

Maximum number of points = 10

– If nothing is turned in by the deadline or the analysis is conducted on a country other than the one selected in the beginning of the semester = 0 points

– If the write-up is turned in by the deadline and the analysis is conducted on the country selected in the beginning of the semester, the 10 points are distributed as follows:

– 1 point for respecting technical specifications (writing in essay format rather than bullet points; meeting the requirement of 3 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12, 1.25 margins; the length of 3 pages is a specific requirement; maximum of 3.5 pages accepted, beyond that there would be a penalty);

– 2 points for discussing the rule of law, i.e. accurately identifying the extent to which the country is governed by law as opposed to arbitrary decisions of individual government officials, backed up by evidence from primary sources and/or cited findings from secondary sources

– 3 points for identifying laws that govern foreign direct investment and discussing whether they are favorable or unfavorable for foreign investors (as specified in the prompts for the assignment, examples of relevant laws would be laws designed to attract foreign direct investment, such as tax incentives, most-favored-nation treatment, dispute resolution fora; or laws designed to restrict foreign direct investors such as high local content requirements or currency exchange restrictions); identifying 1 relevant law would earn 1 point; identifying 2 relevant laws would earn 2 points; to earn 3 points, the paper should identify at least 2 relevant laws (typically more) and identify overall trends in the country’s legal environment – for example, are most laws favorable or unfavorable to foreign direct investment/ do the laws favor foreign investors from a particular country of origin or from a particular sector of the economy/ is there an ongoing tendency to modify existing laws to make them more or less favorable to foreign investors

– 1 point for identifying challenges for American investors posed by the legal environment

– 1 point for identifying opportunities for American investors posed by the legal environment

– 2 points for formulating 2 recommendations (1 point for each recommendation) to an American investor to successfully navigate the country’s legal environment (the recommendations have to be actionable items; to get the full points, each recommendation has to be supported with arguments).