Professor Mads Andenas QC addressed on General Contract Law and Financial Markets: Regulation and Good Faith

Professor Mads Andenas QC, the Peter Ellinger Visiting Professor at the NUS Law School for AY 2019-2020, delivered the Distinguished Visitor Lecture hosted by NUS Law’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL) on 21 January 2020. The event was attended by over 100 academics and practitioners, including donors of the Peter Ellinger Visiting Professorship.

Professor Andenas started with an overview of the development of fiduciary duties and regulatory rules in the UK during the 1990s. He elaborated on two UK Law Commission reports that considered, inter alia, whether conduct of business rules would be damaging to financial markets, and the regulatory impact of such rules on contract law and contractual remedies. Professor Andenas then brought the audience through judicial statements made on the status of such regulatory rules in a number of mis-selling cases heard after the 2007/8 global financial crisis. He surmised that the conduct of business rules then appeared to constitute a parallel and separate regime from common law rules. As he discussed the emerging good faith doctrine in recent commercial cases, Professor Andenas argued that the good faith doctrine, and the traditional balancing exercise carried out in contract law, provides legal solutions that allow regulatory rules to be taken into account in the interpretation of financial contracts.

The session was moderated by Professor Dora Neo, Associate Professor and Director of CBFL.