Undergraduate - UnitLAW4324 - Corporate governance and shareholders remedies

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Law
Offered	Not offered in 2015

Synopsis

This unit examines the way corporations are governed, and the roles of directors and shareholders. Primary focus will be on Australian law, however, comparisons will be drawn from other countries, eg the UK, Canada and the US. Topics include:

Corporate Governance

division of power between the board and the general meeting
the role of the board
the way boards are regulated

Shareholders' Remedies

self help remedies; individual shareholder activism; and customising the corporate constitution
litigious remedies, including: oppression, winding up, common law limitations on majority voting power; and the statutory derivative action

Outcomes

On completion of this unit, students should be able to: recognise and understand the common problems experienced by members of various types of company; advise a hypothetical client regarding strategies for preventing or remedying those problems without recourse to litigation; advise a hypothetical client regarding litigious remedies to combat those problems; understand likely trends for future development in the law relating to shareholders' rights and remedies; develop and demonstrate oral communication skills and skills of presentation of legal concepts, rules and argument in an interactive seminar context; and, develop and demonstrate legal research and writing and legal argument skills.

Assessment

Presentation: 10%; Research Paper: 90%.

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Prerequisites

LAW1100 OR LAW1101 and LAW1102 or LAW1104; LAW4171