Description

The lecture addresses good faith in contract law, and the impact of regulation on financial contracts. Much dogma and principle has been invoked to arrest the impact of good faith and regulation on general contract law. Professor Andenas deconstructs this dogmatic approach, and takes us back to the work of his judicial heroes who started out in the Commercial Court in London, Lords Donaldson, Goff, Bingham, and the recently appointed Supreme Court Justice, Lord Leggatt. Assisted by Robert Goff QC, Sir John Donaldson developed fiduciary duties in a way which could provide private law duties beyond what some considered contract and regulation on a ‘strict’ interpretation, permitted. Sir Thomas Bingham drew inspiration from Lord Mansfield and EU legislation. Sir George Leggatt created a new basis in legal principle and authority for good faith. With Brexit drawing closer, English lawyers are looking to the Commonwealth. It has struck against the outdated doctrines, with the Canadian Supreme Court establishing good faith as the ‘irreducible core’ and prompted lively judicial and academic discourses elsewhere. Much of this development relates to financial contracts. Professor Andenas argues that good faith and the traditional balancing in contract and tort law provide legal solutions for taking account of regulatory rules.

About The Speaker

Professor Mads Andenas QC, the University of Oslo and Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, who is visiting NUS this term, was The Director of the Centre of European Law, King’s College, University of London 1991-1999 and of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law 1999- 2006. Earlier this year he was appointed Grande Ufficiale of the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana and an honorary Queen’s Counsel.

‘Professor Mads Andenæs is considered a stellar academic and has been recommended for his work in the fields of comparative and international law, in familiarising academic and practising lawyers and the judiciary in this jurisdiction with other systems of law and by encouraging exchanges of views and approaches between common and civil lawyers. He has written many books on the subject. He has established a series of annual seminars on pressing issues as seen from European Supreme Courts. This was inaugurated by a seminar in the UK Supreme Court with the participation of a number of leading UK practitioners and judges. He was also member and Special Rapporteur in the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and contributed to its report « Basic Principles and Guidelines » (2012). This report has been referred to in UK Supreme Court judgments.’ (The Lord Chancellor of England and Wales)

Who Should Attend

Academics, banking lawyers, in-house bank counsel, policymakers