Course 2020-2021 a.y.

The course covers the following topics in Private and Business Law.

Private Law. We discuss some of the essential rules applicable to economic activities, focusing on the interaction between party autonomy and market regulation in business transactions. Attention is devoted to the relationship between the law and the state, the difference between rules and principles and distinctions between common law and civil law. Some specific topics such as natural persons and legal entities then help to tackle the basic problems of contract law. With respect to the latter, the focus is on the life circle of the contract, from its conclusion to its termination.

Business Law. We focus on the corporation as a legal form enabling business participants to transact easily and cost-effectively through the medium of the corporate entity. Classes cover the corporation’s core legal characteristics, in terms of legal personality, limited liability, transferable shares, delegated management under a board structure, and investor ownership. Against this fundamental backdrop, the course builds on the European regulatory framework relevant to company law to discuss the corporate governance structure of the firm, including the board of directors and the shareholders meeting, creditor protection, and the company’s financing.

• Explain the basic features of private and business law.
• Understand the principles and rules governing economic activities.
• Identify the issues that can arise in contracts and business transactions and correctly address them from the practical standpoint.
• Explain the legal principles and rules relevant to private and business law.
• Summarize the main features of private, contract and corporate law.

• Identify and discuss the principles and legal rules applicable to economic activities of individuals and business corporations and the rationale therof.
• Develop analytical skills.
• Solve basic legal issues that can arise in business transactions.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Exercises (exercises, database, software etc.)
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)

Lectures include in-class discussion based on short exercises and/or stylized cases on specific issues to help students familiarize with identifying and applying the relevant legal principles or rules. Class discussion is aimed at encouraging students bring their own views, develop analytical and critical thinking and understand how the topics covered during the course are applied in practice.

• Regular attendance is highly recommended, both in order to more easily familiarize with the issues covered and the analytical tools to be employed to address them, and because taking good class notes is of great help in preparing both parts of the exam.

Students’ assessment is based on a written exam, equally split between Private Law and Business Law (50% each of the final grade), and consisting in closed-ended and open-ended questions aimed at verifying students’ ability to:

• Describe and explain key concepts of private and business law covered during the course.
• Identify and discuss the rationale of a given principle or rule of law and its application.
• Analyze basic hypotheticals by identifying the relevant issues and come up with a meaningful solution based on the analytical tools covered during the course.

Students can take a partial (midterm) written exam covering the first part of the course and complete the written exam at the end of the course covering its second part. The weight is: 50% for the partial exam and 50% for the end of term exam.

Alternatively, students can take a final, general written exam covering both parts of the course and accounting for 100% of the final grade (50%+50%, as mentioned above).

The detailed structure of the exam is announced at course start. Any possible partial distinction between attending and non-attending students is announced at course start. At any rate, such distinction, if any, will not affect the features of the exam as summarized above.

• The main study materials – in addition to students’ class notes which greatly help prepare the exam – include the slide sets prepared by the instructors, the cases and or/edited notes and other materials to be uploaded to the Bboard platform, and the textbooks adopted. The textbooks adopted will be indicated at the start of the course.
• Partial distinctions (if any) in teaching materials for attending and non-attending students are announced at course start.