The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Maja Cvjetanovic
Maja Cvjetanovic is a senior at the University of Queensland in Australia studying law. Coles and Woolworths—the major Australian supermarket chains—have teamed up with certain gasoline outlets to offer their customers discounts on gasoline. The discount scheme is not uncommon amongst other jurisdictions, including the United States and various European countries [1]. Several US states in particular have responded to the initiative with the so-called ‘sales-below-cost’ laws [2]. The discount works after a customer spends a "minimum" (typically $30) on their grocery shopping at a supermarket chain. The customer then presents the receipt to the relevant gasoline station in order to receive a discount of 8 cents per liter, for example. Academic literature defines this conduct as "bundling," which occurs when one firm offers a discount to its customers, conditional upon the purchase of another product or a particular volume of another product [3]. The conduct can be contrasted to its close counterpart, "tying," in the sense that the latter practice occurs when the two products are tied together, giving the customer no choice but to purchases both items [4]. This practice is widespread among many different industries; some commonly cited examples include the bundling of hotel packages at discounted rates and home telecommunication plans [5].
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 By Maja Cvjetanovic
Maja Cvjetanovic is a senior at the University of Queensland in Australia studying law. The late 1990s and early 2000s period saw the practice of diversifying credit risk through ‘special purpose vehicles,’ culminating in the Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). The CDOs housed different ‘collateral’ through a trust-like arrangement; the income flowing from the collateral was given to investors, according to the different tranches to which the investors belonged [1]. In essence, the risk inherent in the underlying collateral, represented typically by housing loans, was diversified amongst different classes of investors, in the event of a default. Since then, CDOs have been credited with playing a central role in the credit market’s demise of 2007. Indeed, CDOs have been referred to as ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’ with ‘lethal’ consequences [2]. Originating in the 1980s, CDOs had rapidly risen to provenance in the 1990s through to the early 2000s, following a move towards greater deregulation in the market [3]. But it is much too simple, and tempting, to scapegoat the vast use of CDOs during this time. A much better explanation of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), as well as the unscrupulous use of the CDO, would consider the amalgam of stakeholders and contributors, who, whether major or minor players, played an essential role in bolstering the demand and creation of the CDO. In this way, the CDO is a pithy ‘vehicle’ to more powerful, human forces: cognitive and moral shortcomings [4]. |
