Commercial Law

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The main principles of Contract Law
• The UK Legal System
• Aspects of UK law relevant to the accounting profession

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Use relevant materials to determine, evaluate and deal with different situations and problems
• Discuss and articulate commercial issues using relevant knowledge and understanding

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Demonstrate skills of legal research and analysis
• Consider how industrial policies and values interact with the discipline of law
• Locate sources of legal information relevant to working in the commercial world
• Identify relevant legal issues from the surrounding contextual facts

The module will be taught in six distinct sections, focusing on important issues of law for accounting students:

Part One - Introduction to English Legal Systems

a.The Nature of a legal system; using the English Legal System as an example.

b.Court Systems.

c.Alternative Dispute Resolution.

d.Sources of Law.

Part Two - The Law of Contract - The main rules and principles that govern Contract Law

a.The Nature of Agreement - negotiation of contractual agreements – Offer and Acceptance.

b.Formation of legally enforceable contract agreements - Intention, Capacity, Consideration & Privity.

c.The terms of a Contract.

d.Vitiating Factors – Frustration, Misrepresentation, Mistake.

e.Discharge of Contract - Performance, Discharge and Breach of Contract.

f.Contractual Remedies.

Part Three - The legal concept of Agency

a.Agency agreements.

b.The legal rights and duties of the principle, agent and third party.

Part Four - The legal rules relating to Sale of Goods and Supply of Services

a.English law, including the passing of property and risk in sale of goods contracts and transfer of title by non-owners.

Part Five - National and International commercial responsibilities to employees and workers

a.International.

b.UK National, with examples.

Part Six - The main rules and principles that govern Tort Law

a.The Tort of Negligence.

b.National liability for advice, goods, property, services and the environment.

c.Introduction to cross-border responsibility for advice, goods, property, services and the environment.

Students will gain an overview of the material covered by the module through weekly two hour lectures. The lecture materials will be formatively developed by assisted learning in weekly tutorials. Students will be guided to appropriate reading and need to prepare answers to their tutorial questions. Independent study time is necessary for students to achieve a satisfactory level of knowledge and understanding so that they are able to effectively participate and apply that knowledge to answer practical commercial law problems.

• Lectures 12 x 2 (24hours)
• Tutorials 10 x 1 hour (10 hours)

Learning activities include:

• Advanced reading of course materials in preparation for both lectures and tutorials.

Lectures

• Handouts containing the lecture material on the PowerPoint Slides will be available on Blackboard prior to the lectures. This is to enable students to resize objects and tables as required and so that the PowerPoint content is available for annotation during the lectures.
• Short tests will be included in the lectures, a, to provide an opportunity for formative assessment and b, to familiarise the students with the multiple choice and short answer question format of their final exam.

Tutorials

• Preparation is required in advance of each tutorial.
• Students are required to read the chapters assigned in the Tutorial Hand-Out (provided at the beginning of course) in a commercial law text book (details provided and books discussed at the beginning of course).
• Students are referred to other primary and secondary resources outlined in the Tutorial Hand-out and required to:
• Conduct research exercises; and
• Prepare answers for the:
• Assignment questions
• Group exercises

Revision

• Module Outline available on Blackboard throughout the course
• PPT/Word document handout available on Blackboard before each lecture
• On-line resources available with course text books. 

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Class Test

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Weekly tutorials. In-Class Tests - marks will be provided immediately after completion of the tests, with a further opportunity for feedback in subsequent tutorials.
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.