Clinical trials play a critical role in the development of life-enhancing and life-sustaining biomedical advances. It is costly and, regardless of how well-designed and ethically conducted, there are always inherent uncertainties which subsequently expose human participants to the risk of injuries or even death. In Malaysia, compensation for clinical trial-related injury has not been incorporated into standard national regulations or policies. Therefore, when clinical trial-related injuries do occur, such participants cannot be compensated by researchers, and with the absence of specific statutory laws governing trial-related injury within the local legal framework, aggrieved parties need to seek legal redress and can only depend on the existing tort laws. To propose a viable compensation framework, the existing compensation regulations and policies implemented in India and South Africa are analyzed, and their best principles have been recommended. This study proposes the implementation of a no-fault compensation framework in Malaysia which should be disbursed efficiently at minimum administrative cost. This proposed approach should be mandated by the amendment of current laws governing biomedical research and, in the interim, should be adopted voluntarily by research sponsors, institutions and investigators conducting clinical trials in Malaysia.
This study investigates the moderating role of environmental disclosures on the market performance of 48 Fintech and 140 non-Fintech firms during the pandemic using data from 2011 to 2022. Ordinary least squares and correlations were used for data analysis. The study's first finding revealed that Fintech firms had a better environmental performance (78.4%) than non-Fintech firms during the pandemic. The study's second finding indicated that environmental disclosures are crucial for shareholders and contributed almost 10.2% to the Fintech firms' market performance during the pandemic. This study's contribution is significant in enhancing the understanding of the shareholders' sensitivity towards sustainability disclosures during financial crisis. The findings of this study are essential for policymakers, start-up entrepreneurs, and shareholders.
This article presents a comprehensive dataset extracted from published annual, sustainability and integrated reports, focusing on environmental (GRI300) and social (GRI400) disclosures, for the top 100 Malaysian public listed companies (based on Market Capitalization as of 31 December 2016). The dataset covers three years (2018 to 2020) with 300 firm-year observations. Environmental and Social disclosure scores were calculated using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework and derived from the content analysis of the companies' reports accessed from respective corporate or Bursa Malaysia's websites. A binary scoring method (one for disclosure or zero, otherwise for each environmental and social disclosure item) was employed. This scoring process underwent three stages of rigorous manual verification protocol: initial check and scoring by research assistants, review by the research team, and a final review by an independent external accounting firm for validation. This dataset is valuable for academics, practitioners, and policymakers to evaluate corporate alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #12, encouraging Responsible Consumption and Production, and shape strategic policies to meet Bursa compliance for enhanced corporate sustainability. It further aids in investigating associations between governance factors and other firm characteristics with environmental and social disclosures.