Highlights
[Upcoming] PLDG-CLT Seminar: The Idea of Equity by Professor Matthew Harding
In recent years, a number of scholars have offered theoretical perspectives on equity that seek to identify its character and purpose as a distinctive element of the legal system. In this paper, I take stock of this recent work, asking what about equity it illuminates and what it leaves unexplored. I then assess the prospects of building on recent theoretical work to set out a general account of equity that both describes the practice in all its dimensions and shows the practice to be normatively desirable in light of political and moral ideals. I suggest that such a general account is likely to show that the idea of equity departs in profound ways from the usual preoccupations of private law.
PLDG Public Seminar: The Extension of Vicarious Liability in Corporate Groups
Dr Xue Feng, Visiting Researcher at EWB Centre for Law and Business (EWBCLB), and Assistant Professor at Xi-an Jiatong University led this discussion on which explores the unresolved issue of whether one legal entity can be vicariously liable for another legal entity’s tort in a corporate group primarily based on UK law.
[Blog post] Corporate Liability and Systems Theory
Current models of the company derived from agency theory and its off-shoot team production theory are not satisfactory in thinking through liability problems. Agency theory is not satisfactory because it is reductionist and sees the company as a nexus of contracts centred upon the shareholder-manager relationship. Team production theory is not satisfactory because it sees the company’s internal hierarchy as having the main task of resolving intra-corporate disputes (that is, among input providers). The theory has no purpose when there are no such disputes and is not concerned with external claims.
The Marex Tort: A Nascent or Unnecessary Tort?
Where a defendant (D) induces a third party (T) to act in a way that contravenes the terms of a court order granted in favour of a plaintiff (P) in an action brought by P against T, does D commit a tort that arises by analogy with the wrong of inducing breach of contract? In the United Kingdom, there is growing support— among those on the bench and at the bar—for such a view. But such support ignores a number of juridical hurdles that, in different ways, all stand in the way of portraying the action as a valuable addition to the tort law canon. Prime among these is the fact that court orders do not ordinarily invest winning plaintiffs with rights against T that are infringed when D induces T’s non-compliance with the court order. T is placed under a duty; but it is a duty owed to the court. All that D induces, then, is a contempt of court, but not a private law wrong done by T to P.