Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

1.       To provide a critical understanding of secured credit in modern commerce and the insolvency process, and what it means for the management of risk and the state governance of companies failing in a modern economy.
2.       To provide a detailed and critical understanding of the methods and principles of security in common law legal systems, with focus on English law, and the impact they have on commercial decisions.
3.       To provide a critical understanding of secured credit in other legal systems, particularly the UCC art 9 and UNCITRAL, and of proposals for harmonisation and reform.

N.B. The module focuses on proprietary or real security, not personal security.

Outline Of Syllabus

1.       Introduction to Commercial Law and Insolvency Concepts
2.       Justifying Insolvency and Exceptions such as Security
3.       Introduction to the Modern Conception of Property
4.       Commercial Credit
5.       Possessory and Non-Possessory Security
6.       US Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) art 9
7.       United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)
8.       English Law Reform and Harmonisation of Laws

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

Secured credit underpins many national and international transactions for goods. If a debtor becomes insolvent, the creditor gains an advantage in the insolvency process and takes more than an equal share of what is left. It is therefore an attractive option. This module explores the principles of credit security, reform and harmonisation of law with a focus on the practical consequences of credit security law on business.

After completing this module, learners will be able to demonstrate critical knowledge and understanding of:
1.       The principles of English secured credit law and their application.
2.       The principles of some competing foreign frameworks, namely UNCITRAL and UCC art 9.
3.       The commercial consequences of having different kinds of security and how it influences how transactions are structured.
4.       The proposals for harmonisation and reform.

Intended Skill Outcomes

Legal problem solving: The ability to identify issues and apply the relevant principles and rules. The ability to match legal concepts to these principles to better apply them. The ability to distinguish material and immaterial differences. The ability to identify the information required to solve a problem, present and absent. The ability to work through from the raw information to a final answer or series of alternatives and to narrow the issues. The ability to make reasoned judgments based on the logic of the law and the plausibility of any choices.

Legal evaluation: The ability to identify issues and arguments. The ability to assess the (differing) effect of legal frameworks. The ability to evaluate the legal rules, principles and arguments against their policy or other objectives. The ability to synthesize different arguments. The ability to adopt and defend a position and to critique a counter-position.

Wider application: The ability to relate the legal issues to both commercial decisions and to policy-making.

Communication: The ability to write or present otherwise matters in clear and structured argument.
Research: The ability to identify legal and other issues and identify and retrieve relevant materials from primary and secondary sources.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lecturing will be used to provide an overview of both matters that need to be known in outline (where little further reading is required) and also matters that need to be known in detail, where it must be followed up with self-study from textbook chapters and academic articles. It has been billed above as small group teaching because it is expected that all classes can be in the same medium-sized room (SR3 or similar) and therefore: (i) the lectures can be more interactive than the norm; and (ii) this give the flexibility to fine tune the balance of more lecture-like classes, intermediate classes and more seminar-like classes.

Self-study is critical in order for the learner to grasp the detail and to spend time considering the material in depth, and working through problems and constructing arguments at a slow enough pace for deep learning.

Seminars focus on checking the effectiveness of that self-study, where learners can check they have understood the material properly, clear up misunderstandings and explore, in discussion, the further possibilities from where they have got to.

Learners should close the feedback loop by reconsidering the seminar material they have not fully understood or completed after a seminar in further self-study.

Where the concepts are particularly complex, a segment of the lecture may be ‘flipped’ in order to extend the feedback loop: Lecture / Self-Study / Flipped lecture / Self-Study / Seminar / Self-Study… This provides the ‘scaffolding’, or stepping stones, to learning more difficult material and avoids making the learners jump large gaps in their knowledge.

Drop-in / surgery / office / feedback, guidance and consultation hours are a facility for another way of closing the feedback loop. Here, individual feedback and discussion is provided for matters there was insufficient time to deal with in a seminar, or where the issue was specific to a minority of learners such that the seminar had to more on.

A formative essay will be set during semester 1. While formally assessing knowledge, the key purpose of this assessment is to formally check the learners’ progress in developing the relevant skills.

Since the module starts with background material before moving on to the substance of secured credit, assessment will be 100% examination. This enables summative assessment of the more substantive, rather than the more introductory, parts of the module.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Formative Essay: To monitor progress both for tutor and student. To practice. To encourage.

Summative Exam: To evaluate the students’ application of problem solving and analytical and other skills.

General Notes

N/A