This course provides students with an opportunity to critically examine commercial law in an Asian context. Although parallels can be drawn between Asian jurisdictions in terms of their economic and legal development, their commercial law systems are too diverse to be treated uniformly. Instead, the principal objective of this course is to cultivate a set of analytical toolkits for understanding and evaluating commercial law in Asia. This is achieved through focused analysis of selected legal and practical issues from comparative and economic perspectives. In order to facilitate comparative analysis both across and within the common law and civil law traditions, this subject will focus on commercial law in the four jurisdictions of China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Basic economic principles will be introduced and utilised to evaluate the efficacy of the respective legal rules, while comparative methodology will be employed to provide contextual appreciation of the socio-economic factors driving legal development. Covered topics will include contract, business associations, corporate finance, and taxation. The subject will be of interest to those interested in doing business in Asia.
The lecturer for the course is Dr Jianlin Chen who is Professor and Associate Dean (International) at the University of Melbourne Law School. Utilising a combination of comparative perspectives and economic analysis, Jianlin publishes widely across both public and private law, including the various intersections of law and business/economic activities. He specialises in teaching Commercial Law in Asia, and is regularly engaged by various law schools in Asia-Pacific to teach the subject.