2017 Business Links Seminars

Information about Business Links seminars held in 2017.

CAGTR Business Links seminar: The aftermath of convergence

16 November 2017 from 5.30 pm - 7.00 pm

Lecture Theatre 2 (RHLT2), Rutherford House, 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington

Speaker: Professor Katherine Schipper, Don Trow Visiting Fellow, Duke University, US

About the presentation

Approximately 15 years ago, the IASB and the FASB embarked on an ambitious multi-component joint project to converge and improve several existing U.S and international standards, including the resolution of longstanding and vexatious conceptual issues related to recognition, measurement and presentation.

Professor Schipper’s presentation discusses the original goals of the convergence project and its accomplishments, conceptual impediments that caused the project to fail to achieve several important objectives and what has happened since the abandonment of the convergence project. The presentation will also consider the implications of separate efforts by the IASB and FASB to address and resolve some of the conceptual impediments that resulted in the discontinuation of their convergence project.

About Professor Katherine Schipper

Katherine Schipper is the Thomas F. Keller Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She holds a BA degree summa cum laude from the University of Dayton, MBA, MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago, and honorary degrees from Notre Dame University, the Norwegian School of Economics, Singapore Management University and the Stockholm School of Economics.

Prior to joining Duke University’s faculty, Professor Schipper was a Board member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). She has also been a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Chicago, and has published in the leading academic journals on topics in financial reporting, corporation finance and corporate governance. She served the American Accounting Association as Director of Research, as President and as President of the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section, and is currently serving as President of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research.

CAGTR Business Links seminar: Fixing safe harbours – An economic analysis

17 October 2017 from 7.30 am - 9.00 am

Rutherford House, Lecture Theatre 2 (RHLT2), 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington

Speaker: Professor George S. Ford, chief economist for the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies

Abstract

When a pirated version of a copyrighted work is shared over the Internet, many online intermediaries may participate, exposing these firms to liability through legal concepts such as direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. Safe harbours largely shield intermediaries from “crippling liability” in return for cooperative action on infringing materials. Yet, digital piracy remains a problem. Dr Ford uses a simple economic model of safe harbour protection to demonstrate that de minimis liability for these platforms promotes infringing platforms to the detriment of responsible ones. Increasing the risk of liability for infringement results in a “separating equilibrium,” with one platform offering only legitimate and high-value content and another offering a combination of illegitimate and low-value content. Effective platform liability should ultimately change the structure of the platform industry, which he believes should improve enforcement of copyright law.  Similar legal changes have recently been proposed in the European Union.

About Professor George S. Ford

George S. Ford is the chief economist for the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit research organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age.

CAGTR Business Links seminar: "Beyond Bitcoin..."

25 July 2017 from 5.45 pm - 7.15 pm

Rutherford House, Lecture Theatre 2 (RHLT2), 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington

Blockchains are the technology underpinning the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. While Bitcoin’s popularity seems to be declining due to its limited uptake as a payment system in mainstream commerce, the hype surrounding blockchains is on the raise. The grand theory behind blockchains is that their inherently “trustless” and incorruptible protocol establishes a single source of truth – a truth based on the strength of the underlying cryptographic algorithm and not on the authority of a state or on the financial strength of an intermediary. The blockchain narrative revives the “cyberlaw-theories,” popularized in the 90s, that technological progress is inherently tied to decentralization and an abandonment of traditional legal institutions.

The presentation is purposefully structured as a high-level introduction to the legal implications of blockchain technologies. Although the assertion that blockchains will revolutionize commerce (and the legal system!) may be unjustified, the technology does in fact raise some interesting legal issues that transcend the simple question whether it is technically and legally possible to automate the entire transacting process and whether contractual performance should be relegated to a decentralized network of computers. The potential practical applications of blockchains – and their legal implications, if any, – require a thorough understanding of their relevant technological aspects. In particular, lawyers must gain an understanding of what blockchains can and cannot do.

Dr Eliza Mik, Singapore Management University

Eliza Mik has worked in-house in a number of software companies, Internet start-ups and telecommunication providers in Australia, Poland, Malaysia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, mainly advising on e-commerce, software licensing and patenting as well as technology procurement, PKI, data protection and provider liability. Throughout her professional career Eliza maintained an interest in all developments (both legal and technical) pertaining to the Internet and its use as an enabler of commerce. Those interests resulted in the 2007 thesis “Contract Formation in Open Electronic Networks” at the University of Sydney, Australia. After joining the Singapore Management University in 2010, Eliza continued her research into e-commerce regulation, the interaction between contract law and technology and the use of the Internet as a platform for commerce. She teaches contract law and the law of e-commerce. Her current projects focus on the legal implications of blockchain technologies and novel transacting interfaces.

CAGTR and XRB Business Links seminar on IPSAS based standards

9 February 2017 from 7.30 am - 9.00 am

Rutherford House, 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington - Lecture Theatre 2

The current IPSASB Work Plan includes a number of significant projects which once completed are expected to have a wide-reaching impact across the public sector in New Zealand.  Three current IPSAB projects which are being developed to address specific public sector accounting requirements are:

(1.) Revenue and Non-exchange Expenses: the project is considering alternative approaches for the recognition of revenue and non-exchange expenses, including accounting for multi-year funding arrangements and capital grants;
(2.) Heritage: the project scope includes recognition, measurement and presentation accounting requirements for heritage assets and heritage obligations (liabilities);
(3.) Social Benefits: the project is considering how social benefit expenses, such as unemployment benefits and pension benefits, provided by governments should be accounted for in public sector financial statements.

Ian Carruthers, IPSASB Chair and Angela Ryan, IPSASB Deputy Chair, will present an update on the status of these projects, as well as the future challenges the Board faces.

Neil Cherry, Deputy Chief Executive, Department of Corrections, will provide a commentary on implementation aspects of the Board’s Standards.