Complex Commercial Litigation - LAWS8765
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: 2
Enrolment Requirements:
Prerequisite: Academic Program must be either 9200, 9210, 9230, 9235, 5740, or 5235
CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
View course information for previous years.
Description
The government, judiciary and legal practitioners are concerned with efficiently managing these cases. For example, see the comments of the Federal Attorney-General, The Hon Robert McClelland MP, Speech to Australian Financial Review Legal Conference 2008, 17 June 2008, "how best do we grapple with large commercial disputes" and Justice Ronald Sackville's decision in the Seven Network Limited v News Limited [2007] FCA 1062 at [3]: "Mega-litigation is an increasing phenomenon and the courts, if not Parliaments, must devise ways to deal with it more effectively".
This course examines what factors cause civil litigation to be complex and what tools are available to manage complex civil litigation, including possible reforms.
LLM Specialisation
Recommended Prior Knowledge
Course Objectives
- Develop an understanding of the possible causes of complexity in commercial litigation.
- Discuss how multiple-parties, technology and the need for experts may impact on the complexity of commercial litigation.
- Analyse how complexity, accuracy of decision making, cost and delay in the judicial system are related.
- Discuss and evaluate methods for managing complex commercial litigation, including recent innovations in the Federal Court of Australia and Supreme Court of New South Wales.
- Examine Australian, US and UK practices and research on complex commercial litigation so as to facilitate comparative analysis.
- Encourage students to be able to express their arguments orally as is frequently needed in practice for directions hearings and case conferences.
- Facilitate students being able to critically evaluate the information and ideas presented in the course and to research and write a well-reasoned a research essay.
Main Topics
- Complexity in commercial litigation
- Multi-party proceedings including class actions in the commercial context such as shareholder and cartel class actions
- Litigation funding
- Case management requirements and techniques
- Discovery in the Electronic Age
- Expert evidence
- Alternative dispute resolution in commercial litigation
Assessment
Class Participation - Discussion of an allocated reading 10%
Research Essay Synopsis (1000 words) 10%
Research Essay (6000 - 8000 words) 70%
Course Texts
Prescribed
M Legg, Case Management and Complex Civil Litigation (2011) Federation Press
Resources
Study Levels
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