Sunday, February 21, 2010

BBMKG (commercial Law) - Monday 22nd Feb @ 12noon




Our first Class test and here are some photos to remind you of the horror on your faces. Anyway I hope you enjoyed the test and rest assured the test will be marked and you will get your results in due course. I received so many messages over the mail and phone asking of the test was open book and this puzzled me cause the course guide said it was open book and I distinctly mentioned in class that it was open book.

Test/Exams are a method by which we can assess your ability to understand the legal rules and apply the rules to given problems. Many students tend to look for practical solutions but in reality we are in fact searching for legal solutions. So whether A would succeed or not is not as material as what legal issues would assist him in succeeding. EG - There would be a contract of the acceptance was communicated. So A would have succeeded if the acceptance was communicated. The legal issue would therefore be whether the acceptance was communicated. And in assessing that issue, we must consider the legal rules on the communication of acceptance as may be laid down by Adams v Lindsell which gives us the rule on acceptance by post. Finding the legal issue is therefore the first obstacle in the test. Try search for the legal issues. In a given question there may be more than one legal issues - your task is to find them and then offer a solution base on the prevailing legal rules.


For the balance of the lesson, we spent time looking at the rules on consideration. Some of the rules that we looked at were as follows:-

- Rule that past consideration is not good consideration (Roscola v Thomas)

- Rule that consideration must move from the promisee (Tweedle v Atkinson)

- Rule that consideration must be sufficient

- Rule that performance of an existing public or private duty is not good consideration (Glassbrook Bros v Glamorgan CC, Stilk v Myrick)

- Rule that payment of lesser sum in satisfaction of a greater is not good consideration (Pinnels Case) and the equitable exception in High Trees. (promissory estoppel)


Finally we discussed the necessity that all contract must be coupled with an intention to contract and to differentiate between social domestic contract with commercial contracts.

Next lesson -we will start looking at Terms of a contract ie. what did parties agree upon.

Enjoy your week.

SK

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Welcome - Commercial Law

Guys, girls and others. Welcome to Commercial Law. FYI - I teach the BBACC on Saturdays and BMKTG on Mondays. So lets get started. I have already completed 2 sessions with both classes - so this blog starts off here. Let me begin by giving you a overview of the course. The course is Commercial Law and you would find the complete content in your course guide. My summary however is a s follows:-

A. Introduction to Law
B. Introduction to Contract
C. Introduction to Agency
D. Introduction to the law of Negligence

In our first session we had already covered Introduction where I had pointed out the reasons for legal rules and also the sources of laws. In our second session, I covered the basic introduction to contract - giving you the basic outline of the subject. Contract as we had discussed will be introduced as follows:-

B1. Formation
B2. Terms
B3. Vitiating Factors
B4. Discharge
B5. Remedies

We are now at Formation in the second session and will complete this by the third session.

Formation of a contract as we had already discussed consists of exploring the legal rules on the formation of a legal contract and as we had seen requires:-

B1.1- Agreements
B1.2 - Consideration
B1.3 - Intention to Contract


So I hope to get this rolling from here. Please let me have your views and participation and I hoe together we can share our thoughts and ideas on the topics we have discussed and perhaps even more. This is my first blog and I will appreciate your assistance in guiding me on any technical issues that may enhance this blog/lecture experience.