Newcastle University

Aims

This course will have the following aims :

To give students a thorough and discipline specific grounding in the nature and sources of law and regulation in the UK legal system, the EU legal system and in the international legal and regulatory order.


To familiarise students with legal sources, reasoning and writing using the financial services law and financial regulation as a case study.

To develop generic understanding of regulatory theory and regulatory design in order that they can better understand the interface between law and financial regulation to support their learning in the more specialist legal and regulatory modules.

Original Summary:
This course provides a structured and accessible roadmap with which to understand the relevance of law, regulation and legal policy in the business and financial world. It introduces students who may not have studied any law before to the nature of law, its role in society and the economy, different legal cultures, how lawyers think and reason and will familiarise students with key sources in UK law, EU law and international law. It makes full use of examples from financial services law and regulation to illustratethe more general points being made. This course provides the intellectual foundations for understanding of the more specialist law elective modules taken in both the Finance and Financial Regulation MSc degree programme and the Finance and Law with Islamic Finance MSc as well as a degree of awareness of and sensitivity to legal and regulatory issues that managers need to develop to operate effectively in business.

Outline Of Syllabus

SEMESTER 1
What is law? How did it evolve? What role does it play in society? What forms does law take?
The UK legal system – with emphasis on English law – History of law in England, development of a modern Court structure, hierarchy of Courts and Tribunals in the UK
What is meant by international law? How does it differ from national law? Where do we look to find international law? Sources – Treaties and International Conventions, Custom and State practice, “Soft law” - International Standard Setting Bodies
The importance of EU law in the UK and the wider world – history and development of the EU and its key institutions, sources of EU law, nature and effect of EU law
Sources of Law : finding and ascertaining the law in the context of the legal nature of the company and corporate law – case law, statutes, regulatory law, EU law

SEMESTER 2
The growth of the regulatory state – law and regulation
Theories of regulation – public interest theories, public choice/economic theories of regulation
Models of regulation
Techniques employed in regulatory law
Towards “Better Regulation”

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures will be largely explanatory of the nature of law, legal systems and legal reasoning as well as how to access and interpret the sources of law and regulation primarily UK sources but also EU and international law.
During the interactive student led seminars students will deepen and apply their legal knowledge to hypothetical business and commercial scenarios and explore their critical understanding of the interface between law and regulatory processes and models.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The coursework will test students’ critical understanding of legal and regulatory materials and written English communication skills.

The exam will test students’ knowledge and understanding of subject matter of the course, comprehension of legal and regulatory materials, the ability to identify legal and regulatory issues raised by commercial scenarios and written English communication skills.

Reassessment will be 100% exam.