Author's Guidelines

Business and Law Journal is a specialised peer-reviewed law journal, giving a forum for articles, reviews, forum announcements, discussion materials and the like, dedicated to the law regime in all aspects of the business (the economy). Our aim is to offer a wide range of publications in various areas of this research field, covering public law, private law, criminal law, international law, EU law perspective, etc. The journal gives an opportunity to young and approved Bulgarian and foreign scholars to publish the results of their original research. Manuscripts shall be in Bulgarian, English, or other widely used languages in the scientific community.

Address

1. Authors should give their texts in a printed copy (if not by email) together with a file on a compact disk to the following address: Sofia 1700, “Osmi decemvri” Str., Studentski grad, University for National and World Economy, or directly to the journal’s electronic address at: [email protected].

Dedication

2. The Business and Law Journal publishes materials mostly, but not exclusively, in the below described fields.

Articles subject to peer review

Administrative law issues, concerning business regulation (administrative law and administrative procedural law, local government law, tax law, financial law, currency law, customs law, procurement law, concessions, territory planning, etc.).
Private law issues, concerning business regulation (civil law, commercial law, labour law, competition law, intellectual property law, consumer law, etc.).
International law and business.
EU law and business.
Criminal law and business.
Economics and law.
Other texts, connected with the above-mentioned fields.
Legislation comments (new legislative acts or amendments in the legal regulation).
Court practice comments and case studies (new court decisions, cases, and practice problems).
Discussions (actual and arguable issues of doctrine, legislation, and practice).
Reviews.
Scientific events (conferences, anniversary meetings, etc.).

The texts in the following fields shall not go through peer review

General Requirements

At least two qualified specialists anonymously should evaluate any text subject to peer review and to suggest whether the editors could accept them. The reviewers, not knowing the author’s name, may directly accept the manuscript for publication or may return it with recommendation for further revision, or may suggest rejecting the manuscript.

All accepted for publication materials shall go through scientific, grammar and language editing and the publication comes after consulting the final content and text formatting of the manuscript with the authors.

Specific requirements

3. Format of the content of the manuscripts

The journal accepts analytical articles in the Bulgarian, English or other languages accepted in the scientific community, which present theoretical issues or applied research in the sphere of legal regulation of business (the volume of an article should be up to 20 standard pages (1800 characters with spaces, footnotes included, each one). When the authors use the publication language as foreign language it is recommendable to consult a native speaker specialist.

The editors also welcome critical-discussion materials, the volume of which should be up to 10 standard pages, as well as other like book reviews, case studies, comments on legislative amendments, practical problems (5 standard pages in size).

The texts should study a specific scientific problem by offering an original position or solving a practical problem. This study should also hold a review of other researchers’ accomplishments on the topic. Besides, the journal welcome analytical overviews as well.

4. The given articles format should MS Office 2003 (or higher version), the font Times New Roman, size 12, text alignment justified with line spacing of 1.5.

First page

The first page of the manuscript should include, in the following order: the title, and the author’s first name and surname, both in Bulgarian and English. In footnote no. 1, the author’s academic degree, position, email address, and country of origin should be indicated in both Bulgarian and English. The same footnote may also, at the author’s discretion, contain acknowledgements related to the work and information regarding the funding of the research. If artificial intelligence has been used, the specific type, purpose, and manner of its use must be stated.

The authors should give in English a summary of 150 – 400 words (with the main points and conclusions).

Example

SUMMARY

This article examines the judicial challenge to the legality of a competition as a basis for employment. The practical difficulties arise from the absence in the Labour Code of an explicit provision regulating judicial review of the legality of such competitions. The essential question concerns the persons who have a legitimate legal interest and the necessary standing to contest the competition before a court. Under the current legislation, participants who did not win the competition do not have a direct means of challenging its legality, as they are not parties to the resulting employment relationship; consequently, the dispute cannot be classified as an employment dispute within the meaning of Article 357, paragraph 1 of the Labour Code.

Particular attention is paid to a recent trend in case law that recognises a legal possibility for indirect judicial review of the competition’s legality within proceedings concerning the termination of employment—for example, termination under Article 325, paragraph 1, item 8 of the Labour Code.

The author handles the accuracy of the translation and transliteration.

Keywords

Write them in English after the summary (maximum 6).

Main text

The editors recommend that the presented text consists of an introduction, explanation of the method, description of the study and the results and a conclusion.

Footnotes

Authors should number the footnotes consecutively with Arabic numbers, mark all the graphics and diagrams as figures and number them consecutively with Arabic numerals (write the title under each figure). Likewise for the tables they should give consecutively Arabic numbers (write the titles above the tables, while the reference of the data sources of the data for each table is under the table).

Quotation

When citing publications of other authors, the authors should apply the following rules. When quoting specific text from other author, give in the footnote the pages of the respective publication (Pavlov (2002, p. 333) states that “...”). When the reference mentions no specific, then they use the following structure: “Pavlov (2002) confirms the thesis about the existence of causality.” If the text refers an author’s name indirectly, it shall use parentheses together with the year of publication: “this problem has already been studied (Ivanov et al., 1997).” Use in the footnotes a short citation after the first mentioning (fully quoted): Armour, J et al. (2017).

If a sentence mentions more than one author, the authors should cite them likely: “Petrov (2000) and Roger (2002) also prove, that...” In case of more than one publication by the same author, the citing is as follows: “as Johnson (1991; 1997) offers…” or “research, made in the 1990s (Lionel, 1991; 1997) show, that …” If in text they mention several publications of the same year by the same author, then after the year put Latin alphabet letter “а”, “b”, “с”, etc.

Example

“A previous study by Vincent (1990а) shows that ..., although in a later study the problem is further explored (Vincent, 1990b).”

In citing secondary sources, to use the following structure: “according to the research made by Wilson (2000, as cited in Smith, 2004, p. 120) …”

Articles in scientific series and reviews

Use the following format: initial letter, last name, full stop, article title, full stop, journal title (in italics), comma, the volume, the year of publication with parentheses, comma, pages.

Example

“J. Armour, H. Fleischer, V. Knapp, and M. Winner. Brexit and Corporate Citizenship. European Business Organization Law Review, 2 (2017).”

“В. Заркова, Регистрация на трудовите договори, сключени с работниците и служителите. Български законник, 7 (2019), с. 55 – 6."

Monographs

Use the following format: initial letter, last name, full stop, the title in italic script, full stop, the name of the publisher, comma, place of the edition and the year without parentheses, comma, pages.

Example

“A. Hueck, H. C. Nipperdey. Grundriss des Arbeitsrechts, 2. Aufgabe. Berlin und Frankfurt a.M., Verl. Franz Vahlen GmbH, 1962, S. 53 – 56.”

“О. Герджиков. Търговски сделки. 4-то изд. София, ИК „Труд и право“, 2015, с. 55 и сл.”

If there are multiple sources by the same author, then list citations in order by adding little Latin alphabet letters “a”, “b”, “c”, etc. after the year of publication.

Electronic sources

If authors refer a website as a source, put the information the following order: source, year, title of the web document or the web page [medium], available at: website address/URL [Date of last access].

Example: American Economic Association, 2012. JEL Classification Codes Guide, [online] Available at: <http://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide [Accessed 15 May 2012].

For the non-mentioned sources use the Harvard citation system (https://im.tu-sf.org/bg/for-authors/harvard-style-menu.html).

Quoted Bibliography

The Quoted literature’s list places the secondary sources used after the main text, starting with the titles in Latin alphabet, then in Cyrillic alphabet and then others following the citing and transliteration rules. You can use the following instrument for online transliteration: https://slovored.com/transliteration/.

Place the list of cited secondary sources after the main text, without numbering under a separate title “Quoted Literature”. Range them alphabetically ordered to the last name of the authors, starting with titles in Latin alphabet, then in Cyrillic alphabet, then in other alphabets. Write after each cited source in Cyrillic in brackets the same source written according to the rules of transliteration.

Example

“Spielbüchler, K., Spielbüchler, K., Floretta, H., und Strasser, R. Arbeitsrecht, Band I, Individualarbeitsrecht (Arbeitsvertragsrecht), 3 Aufl. Wien, Manz Verlags- und Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1988.”

“Василев, А. Глава девета. Трудова дисциплина. Мръчков, В., Средкова, Василев, А. Коментар на Кодекса на труда, ХІ изд. София, Сиби, 2013 (Vasilev, A. Glava deveta. Trudova distsiplina. Mrachkov, V., Sredkova, Vasilev, A. Komentar na Kodeksa na truda, XІ izd. Sofia, Sibi, 2013).”

Giving the texts to the editors, processing, and publication

Manuscripts shall be submitted in electronic form. By submitting their work, authors agree to its publication in the journal and confirm that they have read and accept the journal’s requirements, including those concerning originality and priority, as well as the verification of possible duplication with works by other authors.

If a printed copy is also provided, the author must ensure that the electronic file and the printed version are identical.

Processing of submitted manuscripts

Each submitted manuscript is checked for uncredited reproduction of texts from other authors. If more than 20% similarity is detected, action may be taken to reject the manuscript.

All articles are subject to double-blind peer review. Manuscripts that do not comply with the requirements set out in Sections 2 to 5 are returned to the authors for revision. Reviewed manuscripts are evaluated, and the decision to accept, revise, or reject a submission is made by the Editorial Board, which subsequently informs the authors of the outcome.

Only manuscripts that have not been published elsewhere are accepted for publication. The article, or any part thereof, may not be published in other editions without the written consent of the Editorial Board.

The processing of manuscripts shall be completed within a period not exceeding twelve months.

The journal is published twice a year.