Module LAW3181: LEGAL ASPECTS OF CORPORATE FINANCE

Department: LAW

LAW3181: LEGAL ASPECTS OF CORPORATE FINANCE

Prerequisites

• The Law of Obligations (LAW1023).

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• This module is intended to provide students with knowledge and understanding of some of the most important commercial financial arrangements, to encourage students critically to analyse the law's response to the special problems posed by those arrangements, to evaluate the effectiveness of the law in striking a balance between the interests of creditors, debtors and third parties, and to consider the role of law in facilitating and regulating commercial activity.

Content

• The topics covered include: the distinction between share capital and debt capital, the types of share capital, the types of debt capital (including the types of shared debt) and alternative forms of financing; policies relating to the law of corporate finance; and evaluation of the application of these policies.

Learning Outcomes

• Students should be able to:
• Demonstrate a sound and accurate (but not necessarily comprehensive) knowledge of the law relating to corporate finance.

• Students should be able to:
• Apply the existing law to given factual scenarios and advise accordingly
• Analyse and evaluate the existing law in terms of its legal and commercial context

• Students should be able to:
• Demonstrate the skill of communicating complex ideas and arguments in clear written form .

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The core principles of the subject will be conveyed by lectures. Additional reading will be set to ensure that more complex aspects of the principles are investigated. Tutorials will be used to reinforce the lectures, to ensure that the reading has been understood, and to develop subject-knowledge and subject-skills as outlined above. Formative essays will be used to develop both subject-skills and communication skills.
• Summative assessment comprises one unseen examination of two hours fifteen minutes (including fifteen minutes reading time). Students are given a choice of questions to answer, but the paper is structured in such a way as to assess students on all the specific outcomes. In particular, students are required to answer both problem and essay type questions: the former primarily assessing knowledge and analysis of specific factual situations raising key legal issues; the latter primarily assess knowledge, evaluative capacity and an awareness of placing the analysis of law in wider contexts of enquiry.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

1 written essay (max 2000 words)

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University