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This course will cover the remedies available for both common law and equitable wrongs in the commercial context (broadly interpreted).
Remedies for breach of fiduciary duty will be considered alongside breach of contract, for example, but remedies for personal injury and death will not be analysed in any detail. The aim is to understand the basis of both monetary and non-monetary remedies. Such an understanding is best obtained through a clear analysis of the leading cases and doctrine, in order to appreciate why the courts award certain remedies following commercial disputes.
Students with an interest in commercial law and litigation will enjoy this module and so will those who want to take an advanced obligations course. The module has been designed to sit alongside the module International and Commercial Trusts Law, and students can take both modules in conjunction without any significant repetition of material.
Each week students are expected to read cases, textbook chapters and articles for class discussion and/or to prepare answers to problem questions which will be discussed in class. The teaching style is interactive: students are expected to ask and answer questions, make their own points and debate issues.
Module syllabus
The module topics include:
- Compensation
- Restitution for wrongs
- Agreed remedies
- Rectification
- Action for the agreed sum
- Specific performance
- Injunction
- Termination
- Election
Recommended materials
There is no one textbook that covers the whole module, but many of the module topics are discussed in Andrew Burrows, Remedies for Torts and Breach of Contract, 4th edn (Oxford University Press, 2019). Students should consider buying this book.
Reference will also be made to essays in Graham Virgo and Sarah Worthington (eds), Commercial Remedies: Resolving Controversies (CUP, 2017) and Roger Halson and David Campbell (eds), Research Handbook on Remedies in Private Law (Edward Elgar, 2019). These are expensive academic works, copies of which are available through the UCL and IALS Libraries.
Module reading lists and other module materials will be provided via online module pages, available at the beginning of term once students have enrolled.
Preliminary reading
None is required, but students may find it helpful to look at the early chapters of the Burrows textbook before the start of term.
Key information
| Module information | |
|---|---|
| Credit value: | 45 Credits (450 Learning Hours) |
| Convenor: |
|
| Other Teachers: | None |
| Teaching Delivery: | Teaching for all LLM modules in 2020-21 will be delivered through a combination of pre-recorded and synchronous live teaching |
| Who may enrol: | LLM Students Only |
| Prerequisites: | There are no pre-requisites for this module, but students who are not already skilled at independently distilling legal principles from a complex body of case law will find it difficult. As it is an advanced obligations course, students who have not previously studied obligations under a common law system will also find it challenging. Remedies for breach of contract, torts, and equitable wrongs will be discussed, and students who are unfamiliar with the substantive legal principles of contract, tort and equity in a common law jurisdiction will need to do extra work before the seminars to familiarise themselves with these principles. |
| Must not be taken with: | None |
| Qualifying module for: | LLM in International Commercial Law; |
| Assessment | |
| Practice Assessment: | TBC |
| Final Assessment: | 6,000 word essay |
