Session: Two
Prerequisites: Introduction to legal methods or equivalent
Professor Hugh Collins
Professor Michael Bridge
Dr Stephen Watterson
Dr Jo Braithwaite
Dr Jan Kleinheisterkamp
The course provides an introduction to English/common law commercial law as a whole and focuses on some important aspects. It commences with the basic common law principles governing commercial contracts, including the topic of pre-contractual duties and remedies for breach of contract. The course then considers particular types of transactions in their commercial context including sales, documentary sales, credit and security, syndicated loans, multi-party projects, banking transactions, and franchises. Aspects of litigation including arbitration will also be considered. These examples are chosen to illustrate the commercial and practical problems arising in different market sectors. A consideration of these paradigms enables an exploration of a wide range of basic principles of law involving contract law, tort law, restitution, and commercial law. The objectives of the course are that students will become familiar with these basic principles of law, so that they can apply them to a wide range of commercial transactions, in the light of the policy objectives which legal regulation pursues, and with an understanding of the context of commercial transactions in which the law operates.
Texts
Core text: H. Beale, W. Bishop, M. Furmston, Contract: Cases and Materials, 5th edition, Oxford, OUP (2007)
Reference Texts: H. Collins, Law of Contract, 4th edition, London, Butterworths/Cambridge University Press (2003)
R. Goode, Commercial Law, 3rd edition, London, Penguin (2004)
Lectures: 36 hours Classes: 12 hours
Assessment: Written work and one written examination