HI6027 Business and Corporate Law T3 2019

Trimester 	        T3 2019
Unit Code 	        HI6027 
Unit Title 	        Business and Corporate Law 
Assessment Type 	Group Assignment 
Assessment Title 	Case Studies of Business Law and Corporations Law 
HOLMES Institute

Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)

The purpose of the Group Assignment is to provide students with an opportunity to work in a collaborative environment in solving two case problems by citing the relevant legal rules and cases and applying these to the facts of the case.

In this Group Assignments, students are required to:

• Critically analyse the ethical implications of legal decisions and how they impact on the business environment. (ULO 2)
• Assess the obligations, rights and remedies available to parties in particular commercial relationships. (ULO 3)
• Critically examine the foundations of Australian company law. (ULO 4)

Critically discuss and apply contract and tort law in business circumstances. (ULO 5) - Critically discuss and apply the legal framework that regulates a company’s dealings with outsiders. (ULO 7)

Assignment Specifications

Purpose:

The Group Assignment aims to provide students with an opportunity to work in a collaborative environment in solving two case problems by citing the relevant legal rules and cases and applying these to the facts of the case.

Students are to form groups, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 students per group. The assignment consists of 2 parts: a 2,000-word written report and a 10 minute video presentation.

Instructions: Please read and re-read carefully to avoid mistakes.

Group Report

1. This group assignment consists of 2 parts. Part A is a question on Contract Law, and Part B is a question involving Corporations Law. Both questions must be answered.
2. The total word limit for the group report is 2,000 words (+/- 10% allowed) with each part having a maximum word count of 1,000 words. Word count limits are strictly enforced. A deduction of two (2) marks will be imposed for every 50 words over the word count for either part of the report. Anything over the word count will not be read by your lecturer.
3. The total word count for the report as well as each part must be clearly written on the cover sheet of the assignment. A paper will not be marked if the word counts are not written on the cover sheet.
4. The group report is worth 15% of total marks for this assignment.
5. Each group must submit a draft of their report on Blackboard according to the due dates below. If a draft is not submitted, the final report will not be marked.

• by week 8 if class is in the normal mode
• by week 4 if class is in block mode 1
• by week 9 is class is in block mode 2

Group Presentation

1. Summarise your answers for Parts A and B of the group report.
2. Present and discuss the summary of your answers in 10 minutes (5 minutes for each part).
3. The Presentation will be done by video recording. All members must present. The group will be marked down if not all members present.
4. Members are expected to wear professional business attire for the presentation and to observe etiquette expected in business presentations.
5. Video link must be uploaded to a publicly-viewable video sharing platform (ex. Youtube, Dropbox, Google drive) and the video link uploaded on Blackboard.
6. A video presentation consists of both images and audio. For this reason, a plain Power Point presentation showing slides even with accompanying voice recording is not considered a video and, hence, not allowed.
7. The group presentation is worth 15% of total marks for this assignment.

Important Reminders:

• You must email your lecturer your list of group members and chosen questions by week 4.
• All group report submissions must be de done online and run through SafeAssign. No hard copies are to be submitted. Only one group member needs to submit for the whole group.
• Please fill in the “Rubric Group Report” sheet (available in Blackboard under “Assignments and Due dates) and attach as a cover sheet to your group report and upload on Blackboard.
• Each team member also must also submit to their lecturer a “Peer Evaluation of Individual Participation in Group Assignment” sheet (available in Blackboard under “Assignments and Due dates) with their presentation/video.
• No submission of either the group report or video presentation link on Blackboard/SafeAssign (if doing a video presentation) is equivalent to non-submission, which will merit a mark of 0 (zero) for the group assignment.
• GROUPS OF LESS THAN 3 AND MORE THAN 5 PEOPLE WILL RECEIVE AN AUTOMATIC PENALTY OF 15 MARKS (50%).
• Group report must be submitted via SafeAssign on Blackboard and show a similarity percentage figure. Any group report that does not show a SafeAssign similarity percentage will not be marked and be required to re-submit.
• Late submissions will be subject to Holmes Institute policy on student assessment submission and late penalties (please refer to subject outline and Student handbook).
• All reports are expected to observe proper referencing in accordance with the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC). A copy of the AGLC may be read online for free via this link:

https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2877782/AGLC3.pdf

• In general, for written reports, a SafeAssign similarity percentage of 25% or below is acceptable. Regardless of the similarity figure, all group reports must use in-text citation and observe proper referencing rules.
• All assignments are expected to strictly follow Holmes Institute’s Academic Conduct and Integrity Policy and Procedures. A copy of the Policy is available on the Holmes Institute home page. (About Holmes > Policies) This policy is also explained in your Student Handbook.
• Plagiarism and contract cheating in any form will not be tolerated and will have severe consequences for the groups found committing the same, including receiving zero (0) for the entire assignment and possible failure in the unit.
• Any group assignment that is found to contain fake or bogus references or references that are clearly irrelevant to the subject matter of the assignment will receive an automatic zero (0) mark.
• IMPORTANT: Identification of individual work. To ensure that all students participate equitably in the group assignment and that students are responsible for the academic integrity of all components of the assignment, each group must complete the following table which identifies which student/students are responsible for the various sections of the assignment:

Assignment section	Student/Students

This table needs to be completed and submitted with the assignment as it is a compulsory component required before any grading is undertaken.

Marking criteria	Weighting (%)
Group Report
- Identification of material facts involved in problem question	3%
- Identification of legal issues / legal question and relevant law	4%
- Thorough yet succinct application of law to material facts	4%
- Citation and referencing	2%
- Professional quality	2%
Presentation
- Group member participation and division of parts	2%
- Depth of analysis and evidence of understanding of the issues presented and critical thinking in answers	7%
- Level of professionalism in presentation	4%
- Overall clarity of presentation	2%
TOTAL Weight	30%

Assignment Questions

Part A: Contracts Law Question

• Read the Contracts Law question below.
• In 1,000 words (+/- 10% is allowed), answer your chosen question using the IRAC method.
• Your answer must be supported by relevant law and cases decided by Australian courts (preferably the High Court) and/or scholarly articles. A minimum of 3 genuine and relevant references are required for this part of the report.
• Your references must be listed in a Reference list at the end of the Part A question.

Lance Lincoln is the curator of the Australian Museum of Antiquities. One day, five years ago, he had a meeting with a man who introduced himself as Trevor Hunt. Lincoln knew of Trevor Hunt from his reputation as a treasure hunter who specialised in finding antiquities for museums. The man looked like a photo Lincoln had seen in a magazine article he had been reading and which was still open on his desk. The man also provided him with a letter of recommendation from the Museum of the Caribbean, which expressed support for his capabilities and gratitude for his retrieval of treasure from a long-undiscovered wreck of a famous Spanish galleon.

The man showed Lincoln a collection of coins and pieces of crockery that he said came from the

Portuguese wreck Gaivota, which he had located in international waters off the northern wester Australian coast. The Gaivota was believed by some to have visited Australia in the early 1500s. he said that, if the museum was prepared to pay him a sum of money to fund a better expedition, he would be able to retrieve a treasure trove from the wreck, which he would give to the museum for display. Its discovery would also be important in rethinking Australian history.

Lincoln and a number of other experts examined the coins and crockery and reached a consensus that they would only have come from the Gaivota. The museum thereupon paid the man $200,000 to fund an expedition and began plans for building a special Gaivota display in a wing of the museum. However, the main subsequently went missing, and after a search was presumed to have died at sea with the other members of his expedition.

Recently, scholars uncovered new records in Portugal about the Gaivota that mean it was impossible for it to have visited Australia as supposed. Further, the real Trevor Hunt has reappeared after being incommunicado in the Amazon forest. It transpires that the mean who presented himself as Trevor Hunt was in fact a conman. The coins and crockery were clever fakes. The man has now been arrested while watching an Ashes cricket test match at Lords in England and is being extradited to face fraud charges in Australia.

The museum now wishes to take civil action against the man to recover the money that it paid him. Ignoring any criminal liability, advise the museum in relation to the grounds both a common law and statute law on which it may do so, and the likely outcome of such claims, explaining relevant legal principles and citing authorities.

Part B: Corporations Law question

• Read the Corporations Law questions below.
• In 1,000 words (+/- 10% is allowed), answer your chosen question using the IRAC method.
• Your answer must be supported by relevant law and cases decided by Australian courts (preferably the High Court) and/or scholarly articles. A minimum of 3 genuine and relevant references are required for this part of the report.
• Your references must be listed in a Reference list at the end of the Part B question.

Your references must be listed in a Reference list at the end of the Part B question

Kellie has gathered a few friends together in order to start up a new business that will import goods from various parts of the world, which will be placed into baskets for the purpose of gift giving. The company Gift Baskets Co is proposed, Kellie is to organise the registration of the company and to ensure all the appropriate formalities are complied with. Each friend has promised to put up $10,000 individually, with a proposed capital sum of $40,000 to be established for the new company.

Kellie instructs a local solicitor to establish the necessary documents for the new company. She orders 1,000 wicker baskets to be delivered to her home address, which is to be the headquarters of the new company. Kellie has also contracted a local designer to create a logo for the company’s products.

After two weeks, none of the friends have been able to contribute any money to the venture, due to individual problems such as school fee payments, car accidents and payments for care of parents; none of the participants except Kellie have done anything in regard to the proposed company.

The solicitor informs Kellie that the company is ready for registration and presents a bill for her work. The baskets are due to arrive and they need to be paid for, and the local designer wants to be paid for their work.

No company has been registered, and the likelihood of any future registration is very doubtful. Required:

• Who is liable for the various amounts that Kellie has contracted for on behalf of the company that is (or was) to be formed?
• If Kellie does register a company, will that mean she is no longer liable for the various contracts she entered into on behalf of the company?

Marking Rubric

Group Report

Total marks available: 15 marks	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
Identification of material facts involved in problem question (3 marks)	2.55 to 3 marks Completely identifies all relevant facts of case	2.1 to 2.5 marks Identifies most of the relevant facts of case	1.5 to 2 marks Identifies the basic relevant facts of the case but misses other relevant facts	Below 1.5 marks Does not identify relevant facts of case
Identification of legal issues / legal question and relevant law (4 marks)	3.25 to 4 marks Correctly identifies all relevant legal issues and are stated in the form of questions. Correctly identifies relevant and appropriate legal rules and case law, and states them in the form of statements	2.55 to 3.2 marks Issues correctly identified, but may contain extraneous information and are not stated in the form of questions. Legal rules and case law correctly identified, but may contain extraneous info and are not in the form of statements.	2 to 2.50 marks Issues are not completely identified. Legal rules and case law not correctly identified.	Below 2 marks Identifies incorrect or irrelevant issues. Identifies incorrect or irrelevant legal rules and case law.
Thorough yet succinct application of law to material facts (4 marks)	3.25 to 4 marks Correctly identifies facts; wellreasoned discussion relating facts to the rules and case law.	2.55 to 3.2 marks Correctly identifies facts. Not well reasoned.	2 to 2.50 marks Facts not correctly identified. Analysis incoherent.	Below 2 marks Scant to no analysis.
Citation and referencing (including minimum number of references) (2 marks)	1.05 to 1.5 marks Correctly cites minimum of 6 references, in-text and in reference list.	0.8 to 1 mark Has minimum of 6 references; or has occasional errors in formatting of in-text citations and reference list	0.6 to 0.75 mark Does not have minimum of 6 references or contains errors in formatting of intext citations and reference list	0 to 0.5 mark No referencing either in-text or in reference list; or cites inappropriate references; or all references not cited in the correct format.

Professional quality including language use and writing style (2 marks)	1.75 to 2 marks Professional language. No grammatical, punctuation or spelling errors.	1.25 to 1.70 marks Some mistakes. Does not detract from understanding.	0.8 to 1 mark Many mistakes. Detracts from understanding. Sloppy.	0 to 0.75 mark Reflects no real effort.
Deductions Excess word count (1 mark for every 25 words over) Under the word limit (1 mark for every 25 word under) Lacks minimum of 6 references (1 mark for every missing reference)

Group Presentation

Total marks available: 15	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
Group member participation and division of parts (2 marks)	1.75 to 2 marks All group members presented and presentation is equally divided among group members; presentation shows an excellent level of effort	1.25 to 1.70 marks All group members presented but presentation is not equally divided among group members; presentation shows a high level of effort	0.8 to 1 mark Not all group members presented or presentation is not equally divided among group members; but presentation shows average effort.	0 to 0.75 mark Not all group members presented and presentation does not show real effort.
Depth of analysis and evidence of understanding of the issues presented and critical thinking in answers (7 marks)	6 to 7 marks Displays in-depth analysis and evidence of strong understanding of the issues presented and critical thinking in answers.	5 to 5.9 marks Displays strong analysis and understanding of the issues presented and critical thinking in answers.	4 to 4.9 marks Shows acceptable level of analysis and understanding of the issues.	0 to 3.9 marks Does not show acceptable level of analysis and understanding of the issues; merely reads from prepared answers.
Level of professionalism in presentation (including members in appropriate business attire; and use of visual aids) (4 marks)	3.25 to 4 marks High-level of professionalism in presentation	2.55 to 3.2 marks Above average level of professionalism in presentation	2 to 2.50 marks Average level of professionalism in presentation	Below 2 marks Below average level of professionalism in presentation
Overall clarity of presentation (2 marks)	1.75 to 2 marks Extremely clear, succinct presentation	1.25 to 1.70 marks High level of clarity and succinctness of presentation	0.8 to 1 mark Average level of clarity and succinctness of presentation	0 to 0.75 mark Below average level of clarity and succinctness of presentation