Monthly Archives: February, 2026
Balmer, Denvir, McDonald and Taylor Poppe, ‘What makes a legal problem? Dispute characteristics and the construction of legality’
ABSTRACT Individuals rarely turn to law when faced with civil legal problems and often do not perceive the problems that they experience as legal matters. Though not all justiciable problems require recourse to lawyers or legal institutions, the dynamics of legal characterization and responsive behaviour are important for understanding dispute processing and developing targeted policy […]
Caley Petrucci, ‘Corporate Goodwill’
ABSTRACT Perhaps the most significant debate in corporate law today is the role of the corporation in society. Do corporations have a responsibility to their employees, local communities, and other non-shareholder constituencies? On one side of the debate, there is a vocal group of critics arguing for a shareholder primacy model of governance focused on […]
Duan and Bamberger, ‘Defining the Character in Copyright Law’
ABSTRACT Copyright law gives special treatment to characters in narrative works. That special copyright protection has long been a source of controversy and legal uncertainty. But it also raises a threshold question, heretofore unanswered in doctrine and scholarship. What exactly is a character? Batman certainly is; what about his car? Freddie Krueger is plainly a […]
Anna Gelpern, ‘Boilerplate against Bailouts: A Regulatory Ride Fallacy’
ABSTRACT This Chapter considers the implications of using private contracts as public policy tools, or what happens when regulators ‘catch a ride’ on private law instruments to their policy destination. It centres on an episode of creative problem solving after the transatlantic financial crisis of 2007-2009, when wealthy governments pledged to stop bailing out too-big-to-fail […]
Luis Porangaba, ‘Future (of) Trade Mark Functions’
ABSTRACT This chapter proposes that a research agenda for the coming years is more productively framed in terms of the future of trade mark functions. Rather than attempting to exhaustively define existing functions or predict others that may (never) come into existence, recent developments steer the debate in another direction. In particular, recent CJEU judgments […]
Guy Rub, ‘Copyright’s Invisible Hand: Subsidizing America’s Cultural Institutions’
ABSTRACT The doctrine of copyright exhaustion conceals a substantial and underappreciated subsidy at the heart of American copyright law. For more than a century, it has operated as a deliberate congressional scheme transferring billions of dollars in value to cultural institutions, such as libraries, museums, and galleries. This Essay reconceptualizes copyright law as a system […]
Farr, Owen and Bhalekar, ‘UK Consumer Protection and the Debate for Reform in Medical Device Liability’
ABSTRACT The long-stop rule, under the UK Consumer Protection Act (CPA) 1987, imposes a 10-year limitation period for product liability claims, providing legal certainty for manufacturers and consumers. However, this timeframe is increasingly problematic in the case of medical devices, particularly implantable ones, which can fail decades after implantation. This review considers an extension to […]
Koh and Yeo, ‘Beneficial Ownership of Joint Bank Accounts: Khoo Phaik Ean Patricia and another v Khoo Phaik Eng Katherine and others [2025] 1 SLR 758′
ABSTRACT This case note examines the decision of the Singapore Court of Appeal in Khoo Phaik Ean Patricia and another v Khoo Phaik Eng Katherine and others [2025] 1 SLR 758, which addresses the legal consequences of property gratuitously transferred by A into the joint names of A and B under four intention-based scenarios (excluding […]
Sammam Junaid Efti, ‘Vicarious Liability and the Interests of Justice: Expansion, Retrenchment, and the Search for Coherence’
ABSTRACT Vicarious liability remains one of the most contested doctrines in tort law, sitting uneasily with the fault-based foundations of the common law. By imposing strict liability on employers for torts committed by employees, it has attracted sustained criticism for undermining corrective justice and legal certainty. This article examines whether vicarious liability continues to serve […]
Sari Mazzurco, ‘Who Trademark Law Is For’
ABSTRACT Trademark law is commonly understood as serving two constituencies: consumers and producers. Its doctrines are justified, courts and scholars contend, by reducing consumer search costs and protecting producers’ investments in goodwill. Under this conventional account, trademark law’s coherence – and its legitimacy – depend on its alignment with these constituencies’ economic interests. That account, […]