In This Catalogue, You Will Find Details of All the Courses Which We Intend to Offer At

Courses Catalogue
LLM/MSc Programmes
2015/16

Welcome!

The purpose of this Course Catalogue is to provide applicants with advance notice of the courses which we anticipate running as part of our LLM/MSc programmes in September.

In this catalogue, you will find details of all the courses which we intend to offer at postgraduate level for the forthcoming academic year. More extensive details on all courses can be found on the university webpages as can detail of courses offered by other Schools.

This document should be considered at the same time as the document: APPENDIX: COURSE CATALOGUE 2015-16 which outlines which courses are a requirement for each programme.

Full instructions on course selection will be circulated to unconditional offer holders nearer the start of the academic year. This will include the details on their programme structure and what courses are core or mandatory to their programme.

Please note that this handbook is for the purpose of on-campus Postgraduate students only. It is correct at time of release. However, it is possible that we will not be able to run some courses and we will update this document on an ongoing basis.

If you have questions please email them to .

Ginny Spencer

Graduate Manager

19 July 2015

Final V0.5

Full year courses – 40 credits

LAWS11106

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Company Law

Dr Parker Hood

Pre-requisites:

Students should have studied Company Law in their home jurisdiction

You should take this course if ….

You are interested in company law

This course aims to give students a broad understanding of United Kingdom corporate law, including current changes; where appropriate, reference will be made to the position in Europe. This course seeks to look at general principles, as well as develop awareness of the issues involved. It encourages students to consider the problems in company law.

By the end of the course, students should have:

(a) a general understanding of the areas of corporate law discussed in the course;

(b) a detailed and specific knowledge of some particular areas of law within this broader framework;

(d) a basic grounding in research skills and techniques in corporate law.

This course looks at the Companies Act 2006 in detail.

Assessments

The course will be assessed by two essays, as follows:

· One essay worth 40% of the final mark (4,000 words)

· One essay worth 60% of the final mark (6,000 words).

Preliminary Reading

There is no prescribed preliminary reading; however, the following books are recommended reading for the course:

· J Dine and M Koutsias, Company Law (2010, MacMillan) 7th ed. (a useful introductory text);

· D French, S Mayson, & C Ryan, Mayson, French & Ryan on Company Law (2010/2011, OUP) 27th ed. (new edition forthcoming);

· S Girvan, Charlesworth’s Company Law (2010) 18th edn;

· N Grier, Company Law (2009) 3rd edn;

· D Kershaw, Company Law in Context – Text and Materials (2009)

· LS Sealy & S Worthington, Cases and Materials in Company Law (2010, OUP) 9th ed. (“Sealy - Cases”); and

· PL Davies, Gower and Davies’ Principles of Modern Company Law (2008) 8th ed. (new edition forthcoming).

LAWS11101

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Contract Law in Europe

Professor Laura Macgregor

Pre-requisites:

A pass in Contract Law at Undergraduate Level

You should take this course if ….

You want to work in commercial legal practice or in an organisation where you will be involved in the negotiation or formation of contracts or in resolving contractual disputes

This course aims to analyse fundamental concepts of contract law, comparing them from a civil law and a common law perspective. In order to do so, the contractual rules of certain legal systems are analysed: principally Scots/English law, French law and German law. European harmonisation initiatives, such as the Draft Common Frame of Reference prepared by the Study Group on a European Civil Code and the Research Group on EC Private Law also form a key focus of the seminars.

By the end of the course students should be able to identify the major issues faced by any legal system in developing a rational system of contract law. Students should be able to identify whether there are certain characteristics which are typical to civilian systems on the one hand and common law systems on the other; and to identify the policies which may underlie the choice of any given contract law rule.

Assessment

Assessment is by way of written answers to two seen problems. The first written answer is worth 40% of the final mark, and the second written answer is worth 60% of the final mark.

Preliminary Reading

The course covers many of the topics referred to in Beale et al, Cases Materials and Text on Contract Law (2nd ed), 2010, Hart Publishing. Students considering this course may wish to read chapters 1 and 2 of Zweigert and Kotz, An Introduction to Comparative Law, (3rd ed), 2011, Clarendon Press.

LAWS11216

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EU Competition Law

Dr Bob Lane

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

You are interested in the rationale behind EU competition regulation

The purpose of the course is to impart to students an understanding of the rationale behind competition regulation in the European Union, the substantive and procedural rules which comprise EU competition law, and their place within the scheme of the Treaties – they being ‘fundamental provision[s] … essential to the accomplishment of the tasks entrusted to the [Union] and, in particular, the functioning of the internal market’ (Case C-126/97 Eco Swiss China Time v Benetton International [1999] ECR I-3055, para 36).

It is the private law side of Union integration and a mirror of the law of the internal market – put otherwise, the commercial law of the EU. Appropriate comparisons with the equivalent laws of the member states, in particular those of Germany (the GWB) and the United Kingdom (the Competition Act 1998; the Enterprise Act 2002), will be drawn throughout the course.

Assessment

Two essays, worth 40 % (1st semester) and 60 % (2nd semester).

Preliminary Reading

Swann, The Economics of the Common Market (most recent edition)

LAWS11024

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Fundamental Issues in International Law

Professor Alan Boyle

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

/ You have want to explore your knowledge of international law in more detail

This is a course in which fundamental elements of public international law are studied at an advanced level. It is intended to be suitable both for students who are new to the study of international law, as well as for those who may have taken a basic undergraduate course but who wish to explore the issues in greater depth.

The course will focus on contemporary scholarship and will try to address the issues in a broad legal and theoretical context.

Assessments

Students are assessed by (a) a written assignment of not more than 4000 words, counting for 40% of the final mark; (b) an essay of not more than 6000 words, chosen from an assigned list, counting for 50% of the final mark and (c) class participation over the course of semester 2, worth 10% of the mark.

Preliminary Reading

Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It (Oxford University Press, 1994)

LAWS11030

/ /

International Environmental Law

Professor Alan Boyle

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

/ If you want to understand more about international law in an environmental context

The principal aim of this course is to give students an understanding of contemporary developments in international law with regard to the protection of the environment and the sustainable utilisation of natural resources. Particular attention will be paid throughout the course to the processes of international law-making, regulation and institutional management.

Assessment

Preliminary Reading

Boyle and Chinkin, The Making of International Law (OUP, 2007)

LAWS11321

/ /

Practice of Corporate Finance and the Law

Professor Emilios Avgouleas

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

/ You want to become a corporate finance lawyer, finance professional, investment banker, asset manager or tax consultant

Modern corporations draw funding to finance their consumption and investment needs from a variety of sources on the basis of extensive cost-benefit considerations. These include a multitude of factors, such as legal considerations, the quantity of funding required and cost of capital depending on its source, impact on shareholders and management etc. Students on this course will discuss the mechanics, structuring, and legal aspects of select corporate finance transactions and their interaction with organised (e.g., stock exchanges, fixed income markets) or private capital markets (e.g., private equity, venture capital or other risk/high yield capital).

To this effect, the course will also examine select topics in capital markets regulation and economic theories underpinning them, including modern finance theory with special focus on the capital structure irrelevance theorem and risk management techniques, including corporate valuations. It also expands on the law and economics of disclosure, regulation of market abuse (insider dealing and market manipulation), and the function and regulation of the market for corporate control. The course then focuses on the mechanics, structuring corporate takeovers, IPOs, Private Equity Markets and the legal and regulatory framework underpinning them. In building the theoretical and knowledge framework, course tutors will encourage students to study and research, under supervision, specific high profile cases and present their case studies in class.

Assessment

Students are assessed by (a) a written assignment of not more than 4,000 words, counting for 40% of the final mark, and (b) an essay of not more than 6,000 words, chosen from an assigned list, counting for 60% of the final mark.

LAWS11322

/ /

Practice of International Banking and the Law

Dr Parker Hood

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

/ You want to become a corporate finance lawyer, finance professional, investment banker, asset manager or tax consultant

International banking transactions and the law underpinning them are at the heart of the global economy. Deals in international banking markets run in to trillions of dollars every year, and cover such diverse areas of finance as bank lending, bond issues, securitisations, derivatives contracts, asset finance and secured financing contracts, such as, repos.
This course will examine the law and practice of international banking in relation to seven areas:
(i) general banking law concepts and principles, such as banker-customer relationship, confidentiality and money laundering;
(ii) syndicated loans;
(iii) asset finance;
(iv) secured financing;
(v) bond issues;
(vi) derivatives; and
(vii) securitisations.

Assessment

LAWS11285

/ /

Regulation of International Finance: the Law, the Economics, the Politics

Professor Emilios Avgouleas

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

/ You want to become a corporate finance lawyer, finance professional, investment banker, asset manager or tax consultant

This course will examine the workings of global finance and the institutional edifice supporting it from an interdisciplinary perspective (law, economics, politics). As such it will discuss the role of global financial markets in the modern world and the interplay between the different economic and institutional actors within global markets. Particular emphasis will be given to the study of soft law bodies that regulate global finance such as the Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

The second part of the course will be an analytical examination of financial regulation in the USA, the EU, and the UK. It will discuss in some depth recent US, EU, UK regulatory reforms in the field of systemic risk and bank supervision and investor protection.

Assessments

Two essays, one worth 40% of the final mark in the first semester and one worth 60% of the mark in the second semester.

Preliminary Reading

E. Avgouleas, The Governance of Global Financial Markets (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

C. Goodhart, The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: The History of the Early Years 1974–1997 (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

A. Turner, ‘The Turner Review: a regulatory response to the global banking crisis’ FSA 2009, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/turner_review.pdf

P. Molyneux and S. Valdez, An Introduction to Global Financial Markets (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 6th edition.

LAW11223

/ /

The Law of International Trade

Dr Simone Lamont-Black

Pre-requisites:

None

You should take this course if ….

/ Want to work in an international law firm or as in-house lawyer in an international business, e.g. export / import business, international freight forwarder or carrier.

This course examined the legal aspects of international trade in a broad context. The legal framework of the course is English law as well as the relevant international conventions and standard terms. The course examines international sale of goods which are transported by ship/road/air with emphasis on sea transport. It investigates the trade terms used in international sale contracts (in the context of English common Law and Incoterms in particular) and analyses the resulting obligations of the parties regarding payment methods (which emphasis on letters of exchange), transportation of the goods (focusing on bills in lading and waybills) and marine cargo insurance in the manner in which these relate to one another. Due to the international nature of each of these transactions the relevant aspects of international private law and dispute resolutions are examined.

The aim of the course is to provide knowledge and understanding of the general law of international trade. It also aims to give a profound overview of the laws, rules and conventions on international sale of goods, carriage of goods by sea and other transport methods, marine cargo, insurance, documentary credits and bills of exchange, international private law and dispute resolution. To analyse the relevant law and to apply theoretical knowledge to legal problems.