Sandeep Gopalan

Implications of a Fragile Professional Identity on Role Behavior: An Exploratory Case of an Accountant Fraudster

Abstract This study explores identity-related issues ensuing from the behavioral choices of a professional accountant who was convicted for defrauding clients of money entrusted to him. It is grounded in data collected from semi-structured interviews with the offender and his companion (partner in life), supplemented with transcripts derived from court hearings. Our findings suggest that the offender was an accidental fraudster whose crime was committed because of his personal traits and because he abandoned an apparently fragile professional identity for a dominant alternative identity. This led the offender to violate professional norms and self-rationalise illegal activity as both temporary and beneficial to his client. Our data illustrate the perils of the professional accountant identity not being firmly established, maintained or regarded as dominant; it enables behavior inconsistent with the professional ‘accountant’ identity, including criminal activity. This study extends understanding of fraudulent accounting practice by illustrating the role of professional identity in preventing illegal practice in the context of a qualitative forensic case study. It highlights the centrality of professional identity formation, maintenance and reinforcement, particularly in the context of identity conflicts.

Interpretation and Application of the New York Convention in Ireland

The New York Convention has largely evaded rigorous judicial scrutiny in Ireland, with merely a handful of cases addressing its text or principles in any detail. This rarity of case law on the Convention might be considered an indicator of its successful implementation in Ireland. Both the Irish courts and legislators have adopted a pro-enforcement approach to arbitral awards, with the aim of providing certainty to commercial parties. Indeed, Ireland does not acknowledge additional bases for declining to enforce arbitral awards other than absence of jurisdiction or prescription. The underlying governmental policy is to increase Ireland’s attractiveness as a venue for international commercial arbitration and this policy has been fully supported by the judicial branch. To that end, Ireland introduced a radical overhaul of its arbitration legislative framework in 2010 with the aim of promoting the country as a nation with one of the most progressive and arbitration-friendly legal regimes globally. This chapter addresses cases discussing complex questions of interpretation, while showing the prevalence of strong public policy considerations in favour of enforcing awards in Ireland.

From sustainability to conflict minerals: the creeping codification of non-financial disclosure

It is an unfortunate reality that violent conflicts in resource rich regions are often funded by trade in precious metals and minerals. Armed groups seek to control lucrative trade in these commodities in order to support their campaigns whilst engaging in human rights abuses ranging from rapes to killings. For instance, the diamond trade has been linked to conflicts in a number of countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Angola, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Sierra Leone. More broadly, the extractives trade has an unfortunate record of human rights abuses and there are repeatedly documented instances of child labour, sexual violence, environmental degradation, displacement of people, and other abuses in communities which ought to have profited from the natural resources located there. Some of the worst excesses involving minerals have been documented by the UN in the DRC—home to the deadliest conflict since World War II with over 5.5 million deaths—where armed groups fund their activities by controlling mines and transport routes. This blood taint is not confined to far-flung regions in Africa and South America—‘conflict minerals’ find their way to local and international markets where smelters and refiners transform those minerals into metals. In turn, these metals are subsequently processed downstream of the supply chain into components for a vast number of end products including cars, electronics, mobile phones, packaging, construction, aeronautics, and jewellery.

Small Goes Global: The Internationalisation of Legal Education in Ireland

In Ireland, legal education is delivered via a mix of university law schools, institutes of technology, and professional providers. Until recently, legal education was largely inward-looking and geared at producing practitioners for domestic legal work. This was facilitated by low levels of external competition and structural attributes of the profession enabling protection from market forces. Today, Irish legal education and legal practice are undergoing a slow change with an increasing ‘internationalised’ outlook. The context of a small market and jurisdiction with limited reach has not prevented Irish law schools and the legal profession from ‘going global’ – in actual fact, they have clearly been committed to embrace the possibilities arising from a greater internationalisation of legal education (IOLE).