Module SXL-3207:
Business Law & Practice

Module Facts

Run by School of History, Law and Social Sciences

20.000 Credits or 10.000 ECTS Credits

Semester 2

Overall aims and purpose

The module aims to ensure students acquire core legal knowledge of the principles essential for operating and structuring businesses in England and Wales. Students also gain an understanding of the procedural rules relating to the operation of businesses including the rules on the taxation of business organisations and on a range of corporate compliance requirements which business must meet.

Course content

The module will allow students to study a range of issues on Business organisations, rules and procedures including but not limited to the law on the following:

  • The law, rules and procedures relating to companies, partnerships and sole traders in order to advise on starting a new business.
  • Procedures and documentation required to incorporate a company/form a partnership/LLP and other steps required under companies and partnerships legislation to enable the entity to commence operating.
  • Partnership decision-making and authority of partners including procedures and authority under PA 1890 and common provisions in partnership agreements.
  • Legal personality and limited liability.
  • Finance a business including funding options, types of security, distribution of profits and gains, financial records, information and accounting requirements.
  • Corporate governance and compliance including the rules and procedures relating to the management of a business and company decision making to ensure compliance with statutory and other legal requirements.
  • Taxation of business organisations including the rules for the calculation, distribution and taxation of a business and its profits.
  • Insolvency (corporate and personal) including the law, rules and procedures relating to the termination of a solvent business, corporate insolvency and personal bankruptcy.

Assessment Criteria

good

B- to B+ (60-69%) High Standard: A comprehensive answer, containing all the material relevant to the question and no irrelevancy, all the material and references being accurate and correct, there being no inaccuracy or error, the whole presented in an argument which, while clear, logical and critical, leaves room for improvement in its construction and presentation. An answer which shows complete competence in the subject.

excellent

A- to A* (70+%) An outstanding answer containing all the material relevant to the question and no irrelevancy, all the material and references being accurate and correct, there being no inaccuracy or error, the whole presented in a clear, logical, critical argument with little room for improvement. An answer which demonstrates a complete mastery of the subject.

threshold

D- to D+ (40-49%) An answer which, while predominantly correct in its presentation of material, contains a significant level of error and is therefore not entirely reliable.

C- to C+

C- to C+ (50-59%) An answer which, while always in the main accurate and correct, fails to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant material and is lacking in criticism. An answer which while reliable with regard to correctness is either not comprehensive or not entirely pertinent.

Learning outcomes

  1. Formulate original interpretations and arguments on legal topics relating to various business organisations.

  2. Appraise the broader contemporary contexts in which the legal regime on partnerships and companies operate.

  3. Compose arguments for legal reform of contentious aspects of the Companies Act 2006 in the light of contemporary developments.

  4. Identify and critically evaluate the law relating to different types of business organisations and the similarities and differences between the various business structures.

  5. Synthesise and critically apply information from primary and secondary legal authorities to solve factual and hypothetical business problems.

  6. Critique the policy issues that arise regarding the regulation of companies, including the views of different commentators about those policy issues.

Assessment Methods

Teaching and Learning Strategy

Hours
Private study

The module requires students to undertake private study in order to prepare for seminars and assessments. Students will be assigned reading and materials for private study throughout the duration of the course.

 156
Seminar

The module will be taught by means of 44 hours of seminars over the course of one semester.

Seminars will be by means of 2 x 2 hour sessions per week over 11 weeks using a blended learning approach.

 44

Transferable skills

  • Literacy - Proficiency in reading and writing through a variety of media
  • Computer Literacy - Proficiency in using a varied range of computer software
  • Self-Management - Able to work unsupervised in an efficient, punctual and structured manner. To examine the outcomes of tasks and events, and judge levels of quality and importance
  • Exploring - Able to investigate, research and consider alternatives
  • Information retrieval - Able to access different and multiple sources of information
  • Inter-personal - Able to question, actively listen, examine given answers and interact sensitevely with others
  • Critical analysis & Problem Solving - Able to deconstruct and analyse problems or complex situations. To find solutions to problems through analyses and exploration of all possibilities using appropriate methods, rescources and creativity.
  • Presentation - Able to clearly present information and explanations to an audience. Through the written or oral mode of communication accurately and concisely.
  • Argument - Able to put forward, debate and justify an opinion or a course of action, with an individual or in a wider group setting
  • Self-awareness & Reflectivity - Having an awareness of your own strengths, weaknesses, aims and objectives. Able to regularly review, evaluate and reflect upon the performance of yourself and others

Subject specific skills

  • Develop the ability to interpret legal rules and employ techniques of legal reasoning competently and efficiently in order to offer a range of solutions and conclusions to actual or hypothetical complex legal problems, all supported by relevant academic literature, jurisprudence and legislative research. Such solutions will be clearly communicated and presented
  • Develop the ability to analyse complex legal issues, set against the background of the political, social, economic or cultural contexts in which they may arise
  • Develop those skills which are necessary for scholarship and research in legal subjects, namely the ability to identify relevant primary and secondary legal sources and to retrieve accurate legal information using paper and electronic sources

Resources

Resource implications for students

Students should have a copy of the core textbook

Talis Reading list

http://readinglists.bangor.ac.uk/modules/sxl-3207.html

Reading list

The Core Textbook for the module is - Lee Roach, Company Law, Oxford University Press, 2019.

Students may also choose other books including the following: - L. Sealy and S. Worthington, Cases and Materials in Company Law, (11th edn, OUP, 2016); or - Alan Dignam, Hicks and Goo’s Cases and Materials on Company Law (7th edn, OUP 2011).

Statute Book: Derek French, Blackstone’s Statutes on Company Law or any other Company Law Statute Book.

Courses including this module

Compulsory in courses:

Optional in courses: