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Civil Fraud - LAWS8154

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Sydney

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 24

Enrolment Requirements:

Prerequisite: Academic Program must be either 9200, 9210, 5740 or 9230

Excluded: JURD7354

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

This course provides a comparative treatment of both the legal theory behind recovery of assets in circumstances involving civil fraud, and remedies available in Australia, Hong Kong and UK. It outlines conduct which is regarded as civil fraud and provides a detailed study of the causes of action enabling a defrauded party to reclaim the proceeds of fraud from the fraudulent party or third parties. It will focus on defences available to third parties, and procedural and other court orders to preserve assets or the claim pending judgment, including discovery and investigation of the whereabouts of the assets. It will analyse the comparative effectiveness of the different systems.

LLM Specialisations

Corporate and Commercial Law
Corporate, Commercial and Taxation Law

Recommended Prior Knowledge

LAWS2311 Litigation 1

Course Objectives

Knowledge of the legal theory behind fraud;
Be familiar with causes of action and remedies available to victims of civil fraud, both from the fraudulent party and third parties;
Understand the defences available to defendants;
Understand judicial measures to assist recovery of proceeds of fraud.

Learning Outcomes

A student who has successfully completed this course should be able to:

Utilise the traditional skills of being able to read and understand legislation and case law with a view to applying it to a problem situations and understand the policy issues involved in civil fraud;
Recognise and respond appropriately to civil fraud;
Advise on the options for recovery of the proceeds of civil fraud;
Advise on defences available including those available to third parties in situations involving civil fraud;
Employ superior research and writing skills which will be developed through a research essay.

Main Topics

Nature of fraud;
Claims for deceit and fraudulent misrepresentation;
Causes of action for the recovery of proceeds of fraud such as proprietary claims and tracing; personal claims, breach of fiduciary duty and restitutionary claims and defences, and personal claims against third party recipients;
Measures taken by courts to assist recovery of proceeds of fraud such as freezing injunctions, provision of information by others, passport orders;
Self incrimination, and loss of legal professional privilege due to fraud;
Issues arising due to concurrent civil and criminal proceedings.

Assessment

Class Participation - 10%
Research Essay Outline - 20%
Research Essay - 70%

Course Texts

Refer to the course outline which will be provided by the lecturer at the beginning of the relevant semester.

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