Commercial Law

Overview

Indictive topics include the sale of goods, consumer sales law, agency law. The module will cover of the evolution, functions and purpose of the Sale of Goods Act 1979. The Sale of Goods Act 1979 gives rise to a number of idiosyncratic doctrines and specialist legal rules in commercial, such as the passing of property and nemo dat. This legislative enactment is notable for other less technical and less doctrinal reasons. It has in many ways been superseded by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 which will also be studied. They level the playing field and attempt to reduce some of the inequalities in bargaining power as part of a general commitment to the welfare of society. The Acts make significant inroads into the traditional notion of caveat emptor and freedom of contract. The Acts imply terms around satisfactory quality, fitness for particular purpose, sales by description into contracts for the sale of goods and services. The breach of these terms can result in a range of different remedies depending on the severity of the breach. The law applied also differs depending on the person(s) transacting. Special rights and concessions are made for consumers (and also private sellers). A general issue here in commercial law is in codification. The extent to which commercial sales law (and consumer sales law) can or should be encapsulated in legislation is hotly debated. Some consider the common law too complex to reduce into a statute and that the continental European model of law-making is inappropriate for the UK; others believe that the technical and precise language of the common law is inaccessible to the layman and so must be simplified and codified to be understood. Certain consumer markets are theorised as being ‘special’ and so regulated in a unique fashion to protect vulnerable consumers. One example is the funeral market. Another market earmarked for specialist consumer law is the fertility treatment. Intermediaries, such as agents and factors, can also make contracts, usually between spatially separated parties and/or in specialist markets. These contracts for the sale of goods intersect with the Sales of Goods Act - but liability is, again, different. These transactions are also regulated by the Factors Act 1889, the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 and an array of landmark cases. This module pertains to domestic sales rather than international sales.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able:
• to understand key tenets of commercial law;
• to understand the legal rules, principles and doctrines regulating the sale of goods;
• to be able to apply principles of sales law to range of scenarios involving business to consumer (B2C) transactions, business to business (B2B) transactions, those involving private sellers and agents;
• to critically assess the theory underpinning the establishment of commercial law and consumer rights;
• to understand the importance of the market – its context and the theory – in determining sales law;
• to critically assess the legal rights given to consumers in an effort to protect them from being taken advantage of in transactions with traders.

Skills

Students will acquire skills in:
• understanding the technical and doctrinal language, which underpins the legal rules in commercial law;
• analysis by dealing with complex and long pieces of statutory law that are intended to be user friendly;
• interpretation by identifying legal principles from an array of cases;
• advocacy by applying this legal knowledge to a selection of problem based scenarios;
• critical thinking by understanding (economic) theory and using this to critique the letter of the law/argue for reform.
• codifying law and the value of codification (or not) as regulatory tool.

Assessment

Group presentation and Coursework