Description

Personal and business loans are commonly advanced by banks against guarantees or other security provided by family members of the primary debtor. The situation triggers a potential claim of undue influence or misrepresentation by the family member, which may render the bank’s guarantee or security unenforceable. The seminar will:

(1) examine the nature of undue influence and modern restatements of the doctrine;

(2) show how the doctrine has been applied in family guarantee situations in the UK;

(3) discuss why, despite the professed adoption of this law in Singapore, its interpretation and application has been so at odds with that in the UK; and

(4) highlight how banks and lending institutions should conduct themselves in this situation.

About The Speaker

Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart has taught at Oxford University for 20 years. More recently, she has held a simultaneous fractional appointment at the NUS. Mindy was Director of Undergraduate Studies at Oxford and has taught for Law Faculties in Germany, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the US. She has written extensively on contract law, and the law of restitution. She was an Editor of the Principles of Asian Contract Law (PACL) Project and is an editor of the series, Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia. She is a member of the Advisory Group on the A Restatement of the English Law of Contract project, is the author of Contract Law now in its 4th edition, a contributing editor in Ius Communis Case Books on the Common Law of Europe: Unjust Enrichment, and author of numerous articles including most recently: “The Nature of Vitiating Factors” in Philosophical Foundations of Contract Law, eds P Saprai, G Letsas, G Glass, (OUP 2014) forthcoming; “Termination, Price Reduction and Damages” with U Magnus, in The Common European Sales Law in Context: Interaction with English and German Law, eds G Dannemann and S Vogenaur, (OUP 2013) 647; “Legal transplant of undue influence: Lost in translation or a working misunderstanding?” (2013) 62 International Comparative Law Quarterly, 1; “Transparency and Fairness in Bank Charges” (2010) 126 Law Quarterly Review, 157; “Bank Charges: A Lesson in Interpreting EC Law” [2009] Law Quarterly Review, 389