Legal Structure of EC Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Legal Structure of EC Law - Case Study Example Christina runs a graphic design business based in Brighton and ordered a new computer system on 5th July 2007 from Avalon Computers Ltd., a mail-order firm specialising in computer equipment designed for professional graphics use and based in Reading. Christina paid 3,000 in full for the equipment and it was delivered to her studio a few days later. However, the next day she learned that she had lost an important order from clients in America for future design work, and reluctantly decided that she could not afford the new computer system at the present time. She immediately contacted Avalon by fax and asked the company to take back the computer (still boxed and unused) and refund the money paid. The company refused. 1. Advise her clearly and fully as to her rights under European Community Law (if any) to obtain a refund of the money she has paid for the goods from Avalon. If she is unsuccessful in doing so, can she obtain redress from any other person or body Ibanez (2004) studied the legal procedures against member states for breaches of EC law and the different aspects of the European Commission enforcement procedure under EC Treaty Articles 226 and 228. Ibanez discusses the policy and strategy in enforcement proceedings and the European model that is followed for enforcing and supervising EC law. The Commission can sue Member States before the European Court of Justice or ECJ under Article 228 if a member state breaches the laws as required to be followed by the states. The enforcement of Commission decisions would be related to new developments and procedural aspects at the European level. The general procedures of the EC law show that the EC Treaty grants the Commission the power to "ensure that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied." This relates to the EC Treaty Article 211 that grants a general power to the Commission and the EU can use the provisions of the EC Treat y for fighting Member State noncompliance. For an imaginary directive adopted by the Council in May 2005, if any one member state fails to keep up to the directive of EU law or the EC Treaty, according to the Articles 211, 226 and 228, the European Commission can take legal action against any member state that fails to comply to EC Treaty requirements or as expected from a member state. Article 226 is in fact based on a legal model of integration between

Risk Management (Firms and organisations within the healthcare sector) Essay

Risk Management (Firms and organisations within the healthcare sector) - Essay Example Upon questioning our Chief Information Officer regarding risk assessment and management in our organization, I was informed that we had a very well-developed system in place, one whose efficiency and effectiveness were an outcome of trial and error. At the end of the 20th century, we have witnessed the massive transition from isolated, disconnected computers to networked computer clusters all over the world. At present time, there are an estimated 250 million networked hosts world-wide (Telcordia, 2002). This global pervasive connectivity has been a boon for consumers, businesses and governments alike due to the ease, convenience and speed of electronic data exchange. However, the ease of use and relative anonymity that the Internet affords has been leveraged by criminal elements, as well. Indeed, no private, commercial or government agency is completely safe or has been unaffected by the proliferation of this kind of cyber-crime. E-Commerce Times reported that the ILOVEYOUvirus affected 45 million hosts and inflicted monetary damages to the tune of estimated $2.6 billion (Enos, 2000). The infamous Melissa macro virus caused an estimated $300 million in damage in 1999 and several prominent e-commerce sites were hit by Distribut ed Denial of Service attacks in the beginning of 2000 (Committee on Science, 2000). The estimated worldwide damage caused by automated digital attacks over $30 billion for 2002 (Economic Damage, 2002). These estimated damage figures have to be taken with a grain of salt, but the trend is clear. Moreover, in just a dozen years' time, the propagation speed, as well as the estimated damages has increased by five, and two orders of magnitude, respectively. The healthcare organization in question has been affected by both viruses and DoS attacks. As the Chief Information Officer noted, each virus or DoS incident proved extremely costly, whether calculated in terms of financial loss or the cost of resolving the problem. Therefore, to prevent, or limit, the possibility of future attacks, the organization has adopted a rather comprehensive information security framework. Key components of this framework, according to the CIO, are risk assessment and risk management. 3 Risk Assessment Risk is commonly defined as the product of probability and severity of adverse effects, and the most common approach to quantify risk is a single figure - its expected value [Hai98, p. 29]. Mathematically speaking, given a random variable with probability function and loss function , the expected risk value in the discrete case is equal to . It is apparent that these are generic probability weighed averaging formulas. As further explained by the CIO, its semantic specialization into an expected value of risk occurs through the loss function. The unit of the expected risk value is the unit used by the loss function and could be downtime, cost, credibility, etc. As a preliminary example, the simplified risk of attack consequences on a host that is running one application is shown in the table below: Hypothetical Risk Confronted by the Healthcare