Institutional background Clause Samples

Institutional background. 1. Each Party shall establish or maintain an appropriate institutional framework and mechanisms necessary for the proper functioning of the public procurement system and the implementation of the provisions of this Chapter. 2. In the framework of institutional reform, the Republic of Moldova shall designate in particular: (a) an executive body responsible for economic policy at central government level tasked with guaranteeing a coherent policy in all areas related to public procurement. Such a body shall facilitate and coordinate the implementation of this Chapter and guide the process of gradual approximation to the Union acquis; and (b) an impartial and independent body tasked with the review of decisions taken by contracting authorities or entities during the award of contracts. In that context, ‘independent’ means that that body shall be a public authority which is separate from all contracting entities and economic operators. There shall be a possibility to subject the decisions taken by that body to judicial review. 3. Each Party shall ensure that decisions taken by the authorities responsible for the review of complaints by economic operators concerning infringements of domestic law shall be effectively enforced. 1. No later than nine months from the entry into force of this Agreement, the Parties shall comply with a set of basic standards for the award of all contracts as stipulated in paragraphs 2 to 15. Those basic standards derive directly from the rules and principles of public procurement, as regulated in the Union acquis on public procurement, including the principles of non-discrimination, equal treatment, transparency and proportionality.

Institutional background. Purdue University is a public university located in northwest Indiana with about 45,000 students of which 33,500 are undergraduates. Slightly more than 50 percent of the under- graduate students are Indiana residents and about 14 percent are international students. In-state student annual tuition is $10,000 and the total cost of attendance is $23,000. Out- of-state domestic student tuition is $29,000 and the total cost of attendance is $42,000. International student tuition is $31,000 and the total cost of attendance is $46,000. The average SAT score for undergraduate students is 1260 (28 ACT) but varies con- siderably by major. Potential students apply to and are accepted by colleges within the university and the admissions cutoff differs significantly by college. More than 40 percent of undergraduate students begin in engineering or science, but many switch to a major in an- other college after the first year. While not impossible, administrative hurdles make it very difficult for students to switch into engineering or science majors if they were not initially accepted into those colleges as a first-year student. Similar, but less insurmountable, hurdles exist for many other majors including those in the business school. Purdue’s ISA program is called “Back a Boiler.” The first year of the ISA program was the 2016-2017 academic year and the university offered the program to students in the final few months of the prior school year and over the summer. Interested students submit an application which includes permission to run a credit check. If the student has a bankruptcy or is currently in debt collection, they are disqualified. This is the only information the university requests as part of the credit check. To be eligible for the ISA, students must have remaining financial need after exhausting merit-based scholarships, grants, and opportunities for direct subsidized federal loans, direct unsubsidized federal loans, and ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ loans. Purdue presents its ISA program as an alternative to a direct PLUS loan or a private student loan.4 Direct PLUS loans have higher interest rates than the other federal student loan options and while the money goes to the student’s education, it is the parent who is the borrower and responsible for payments. Private student loans have the highest interest rates of all student loan options. While ISAs are similar to income-based student loan repayment, the fundamental differ- ence is that ISAs have no loan balance that the...

Institutional background. 1. Each Party shall establish or maintain an appropriate institutional framework and mechanisms necessary for the proper functioning of the public procurement system and the implementation of the principles in this Chapter. 2. Each Party shall designate in particular: (a) an executive body at central government level tasked with guaranteeing a coherent policy and its implementation in all areas related to public procurement. That body shall facilitate and coordinate the implementation of this Chapter; (b) an impartial and independent body tasked with the review of decisions taken by contracting authorities or entities during the award of contracts. In this context, ‘independent’ means that that body shall be a public authority which is separate from all contracting entities and economic operators. There shall be a possibility to subject the decisions taken by this body to judicial review or, where that body is a judicial body, appeal to a higher judicial body. 3. Each Party shall ensure that decisions taken by the authorities responsible for the review of complaints by economic operators concerning infringements of domestic law shall be effectively enforced. 1. The Parties shall comply with a set of basic standards for the award of all contracts as stipulated in paragraphs 2 to 15 of this Article. These basic standards derive directly from the rules and principles of public procurement including the principles of non-discrimination, equal treatment, transparency and proportionality.

Institutional background. 1. Each Party shall establish or maintain an appropriate institutional framework and mechanisms necessary for the proper functioning of the public procurement system and the implementation of the principles in this Chapter. 2. The Trade and Sustainable Development Sub Committee shall appoint in particular: a) an executive body at central government level tasked with guaranteeing a coherent policy and its implementation in all areas related to public procurement. That body shall facilitate and coordinate the implementation of this Chapter and guide the process of gradual approximation; b) an impartial and independent body tasked with the review of decisions taken by contracting authorities or entities during the award of contracts. In this context, ‘independent’ means that that body shall be a public authority which is separate from all contracting entities and economic operators. There shall be a possibility to subject the decisions taken by this body to judicial review. 3. Each Party shall ensure that decisions taken by the authorities responsible for the review of complaints by economic operators concerning infringements of domestic law shall be effectively enforced.

Institutional background. ‌ The federal judicial system is comprised of three court tiers. The first is the district or trial court. Federal defendants who contest their guilt are tried in one of 94 US district courts. Next, appeals are handled by one of 11 circuit or appellate courts. Lastly, the Supreme Court of the United States sits atop the system as the highest court in the land. Federal judges are appointed by the President for life, and cases are randomly allocated to judges within each district. As part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (Pub.L. 98–473, S. 1762, 98 Stat. 1976, October 12, 1984), Congress founded the United States Sen- tencing Commission (USSC). Prior to the Act, judges were free to sentence within a wide range allowed by law. The USSC was created in response to the perceived sentencing inequity that similarly culpable offenders would face when going before different judges; its principle job is to develop guidelines for sentencing convicted fed- eral offenders. Those guidelines take the form of a grid or table. One axis contains the severity of the offense, while the other contains the criminal history of the offender (see Figure A1). Upon a conviction, a judge calculates the offender’s position in the table and chooses a sentence within the given range. The ranges are fairly narrow, with the lower bound typically being about 75% of the upper bound. The guidelines became binding in 1987, at which point federal parole was abol- ished. Judges were able to depart from the guidelines, but any departure could be reversed on appeal. Over time, Congress grew concerned about the frequency of downward departures and took steps to reduce them in part of an omnibus crime ▇▇▇▇, the PROTECT Act (Pub.L. 108–21, ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇. ▇▇▇, ▇. 151, April 30, 2003).2 In the years preceding the Act, departures were reviewed under an abuse-of-discretion standard. The PROTECT Act instated a stricter de novo standard of review. It also strengthened reporting requirements and put extra limits on the grounds for departure. Furthermore, then Attorney General ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ urged prosecutors to oppose downward departures (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 2010). Roughly a year and a half later, in a watershed case, the US Supreme Court excised the portion of law making the guidelines mandatory upon judges (United States ▇. ▇▇▇▇▇▇ , 543 U.S. 220 [2005]). As courts grappled with how much weight to afford the guide- lines, now formally advisory, the Court clarified that a sentence within the guide...

Institutional background. 1. Each Party shall establish or maintain an appropriate institutional framework and mechanisms necessary for the proper functioning of the public procurement system and the implementation of the provisions of this Chapter. 2. In the framework of institutional reform, the Republic of Moldova shall designate in particular: (a) an executive body responsible for economic policy at central government level tasked with guaranteeing a coherent policy in all areas related to public procurement. Such a body shall facilitate and coordinate the implementation of this Chapter and guide the process of gradual approximation to the Union acquis; and (b) an impartial and independent body tasked with the review of decisions taken by contracting authorities or entities during the award of contracts. In that context, "independent" means that that body shall be a public authority which is separate from all contracting entities and economic operators. There shall be a possibility to subject the decisions taken by that body to judicial review. 3. Each Party shall ensure that decisions taken by the authorities responsible for the review of complaints by economic operators concerning infringements of domestic law shall be effectively enforced.

Institutional background. Describes the applicant institution in terms of its location, demographics, mission, relationship to the service area and past successes in the project area.

Institutional background. This part will describe and have an overview of the actual situation of gender diversity among European board of directors. It exposes the measures that the European Union and several of their member states have recently taken namely with regards to the introduction of gender quotas to strive for gender equality on boards of directors of large listed companies. Moreover, the positive and negative effects of the implementation of this law will be considered taken into account different views. 1. The actual situation of gender diversity on board 1.1. The actual situation in Europe and worldwide In 2018, as shown in Figure 1, Belgium board representation of women is higher than in most other countries (Eurostat, 2019). The fact that women’s representation is higher in some European countries than elsewhere is related to regulations on the gender composition of boards of directors of the large listed companies, that some European countries have recently implemented (▇▇▇▇▇, 2014). Figure 1 indicates that the highest share of female board members in the largest publicly listed companies is recorded in France having a 44% representation. They are followed by Italy and Sweden, Finland and Germany having approximately a 35% share. At the opposite side of the scale, women account for less than a fifth of board members. At European level, women board representation is just over a quarter, which is equivalent to 27%. Over the last five years, this share has increased by 9% while it amounted to only 18% in 2013 (Eurostat, 2019). Figure 1 : Proportion of female board members in the largest publicly listed companies in 2018 Source: Eurostat (2019) A study by SpencerStuart (2019) analysed the same situation (Appendix 1). This study reveals that progress varies between countries. Some such as Norway have an average of over 45% female board representation while it amounts to 24% in the USA and only counts 7,9% in Russia (SpencerStuart, 2019). A number of factors including regulations and culture drive these differences. It is being noticed that Belgium is doing rather well compared to the European average. However, it will take time to achieve boardroom gender equality. Therefore, policy regulations have been put in place to keep up the pace of change.