Day: March 3, 2014

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LIME Is A Web Based Text Editor That Helps XMLize Your Legal Docs

LIME is an extremely customizable web based editor that guides the user through the markup of non structured documents into well formed (optionally valid) structured XML document compliant to the language plugin chosen by the user. The LIME editor is an open source software and relies on many open source technologies. LIME is currently under development by the CIRSFID and the University of Bologna. Read the documentation page for more information about LIME and the team page for more information about the LIME team.

via About LIME | LIME.

The editor is designed to support conversion of non-structured legal documents into Akoma Ntoso XML. The editor’s modular structure allows you to add other plugins so that it can support a range of XML schemas including various national versions of Akoma Ntoso and more general markup such as TEI.  You can find the code on Github if you want to take it for a local spin.

I’m interested in taking a look at this to see if it can work with US court opinions. Perhaps it will give me an editor that I can use to convert opinions into that court opinion DTD I put together so many years ago.

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Who Really Owns America’s Large Mutinationals? It’s Hard To Say According to Penn Law Prof.

There is no way to tell whether America’s largest multinational companies – the Googles, Apples and Ciscos of the world – are in fact American-owned, a surprising gap in financial reporting that has important implications for U.S. international tax policy, according to new research by a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor.
The research by Chris William Sanchirico suggests that the extent of foreign ownership of U.S. multinationals is unknown even to the companies themselves, due to the way many shares of stock are purchased and registered.
Sanchirico, the Samuel A. Blank Professor of Law, is co-director of the Center for Tax Law & Policy. His research paper As American As Apple Inc. was recently issued by the Penn Law Institute for Law & Economics.

via Who owns Apple? New research from Penn Law argues no one really knows • Penn Law.

Interesting article that highlights an intriguing issue with America’s largest multinationals: who benefits from the tax benefits the corporations receive? Since it is often not clear who owns stock in these corps and the businesses take advantage of US tax law to move profits offshore, any sort of tax break given for repatriating those profits may actually have more benefit to foreign than US stock holders.