The object of this study is to evaluate the consequences of the application of the EEC Regulation 4064a89 to non-European companies. We focus on the Boeing± McDonnell Douglas merger case, one of the first non-European mergers considered by the Commission. The analysis of abnormal returns on the two securities shows that the threat of a ban of the merger by the Commission were not perceived as credible at first. But when Boeing decided to ask the support of the American government, just after the decision of the European Commission to extend its investigations to the long term exclusivity contracts, the role of the Commission emerged.

A. Robe and Patrick Roger for insightful comments and discussions. The IFE (Institut Français de l'Energie) is aknowledged for financial support.

Résumé Deux ensembles de Conventions internationales régissent la responsabilité civile de l’exploitant nucléaire. La convention de Paris et la convention de Vienne stipulent notamment la responsabilité stricte de l’exploitant nucléaire, la limitation de sa responsabilité et l’obligation de présenter des garanties financières. Les législations nationales ont toute latitude pour augmenter le plafond de responsabilité fixé par ces régimes internationaux. Après avoir présenté les principaux éléments de ces Conventions, nous nous intéressons à l’impact d’une modification du montant de responsabilité de l’exploitant nucléaire sur sa politique de prévention d’accidents et sur sa solvabilité. Nous montrons en particulier qu’une augmentation de la responsabilité de l’exploitant au-delà d’un plafond déterminé par le modèle l’incite à diminuer ses activités de prévention, contrairement à ce qui est attendu. Par ailleurs, l’impact des activités de prévention sur la contrainte financière de l’exploitant dépend de la sensibilité de la distribution du risque à l’évolution du niveau de prévention : les mesures de prévention entreprises doivent être discutées en fonction du degré de gravité des accidents concernés et/ou de la taille du parc nucléaire.

This paper considers a limited liability firm that needs external funds in order to invest in an activity that presents an environmental risk for the Society. When the firm's risk-reducing activities cannot be observed by the lenders, we show that the issue of convertible bonds can create incentives to improve prevention. Convertible bonds allow the holder to exchange his bonds for a fixed number of the firm's shares. The use of such hybrid securities could either complement or be an alternative to the American CERCLA legislation about lender extended liability. We define an optimal convertible bond contract that induces unchanged economic profits for the bank, more prevention and higher expected net revenues for the firm and a higher expected social welfare than with standard debt. Our results hold true both with and without extended liability. r 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The aim of this paper is to show how qualified investors in cat bonds can offer adequate pandemic business interruption protection in a comprehensive public–private coverage scheme. First, we propose a numerical model to expose how cat bonds can contribute to complement standard re/insurance by improving coverage of cedents even though risks are positively correlated during a pandemic. Second, we introduce double trigger pandemic business interruption cat bonds, which we name PBI bonds, and discuss their precise characteristics to provide efficient coverage. A first trigger should be pulled when the World Health Organization declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The second trigger determines the payout of the bond based on the modelised business interruption losses of an industry in a country. We discuss moral hazard, basis risk, correlation and liquidity issues which are critical in the context of a pandemic. Third, we simulate the life of theoretical PBI bonds in the restaurant industry in France by using data gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic.