Author Archives:
Jing and Zhu, ‘A comparative analysis of the insurer’s pre-contractual duty of utmost good faith’
ABSTRACT This article comparatively analyses insurer’s pre-contractual duty of utmost good faith in English law and in some other common law jurisdictions (Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) and civil law jurisdictions (China and Germany). At common law, the insurer has a pre-contractual duty to disclose facts known to it which are material to: […]
Krish Maharaj, ‘When Should Breach of Good Faith Beget Punitive Damages?’
ABSTRACT This article highlights a recent trend towards claimants seeking, and courts awarding, punitive damages in contract cases predicated on a breach of contract in conjunction with an ‘independent actionable wrong’ – a requirement since the Supreme Court’s decision in Whiten v Pilot Insurance – in the form of a breach of the duty of […]
Lai, Yu and Lam, ‘Michael Heller’s theory of the “tragedy of the anti-commons”: A Coasian property rights interpretation and some applications to planning policies’
ABSTRACT This short analytical paper discusses Heller’s (2013) concept of the ‘tragedy of the anti-commons’ (TOAC) and his car-parking fable; and translates his analysis, in its best possible light, into a Coasian property rights-access framework. Within this framework, the paper proceeds to denominate TOAC as a special case of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (TOC) […]
‘Contract Law: Past, Present and Future’: University College London, 12 June 2026
The first edition of Chitty on Contracts was published in 1826. To mark its 200th anniversary, the Private Law Group at University College London is hosting a one-day conference on Friday 12 June 2026. There will be papers on Chitty’s place in legal history, on current issues in contract law and on developments that may […]
Call for Papers: 17th Transnational Commercial Law Teachers Meeting, University of Pittsburgh, 8-9 October 2026
Following the great success of the prior conferences in, among other locations, Tubingen, Manchester, Oxford, Heidelberg, Kyushu, Madrid, Perth, Santiago, Rome, and Greensboro, it is my great pleasure to invite you to the 17th Transnational Commercial Law Teachers Meeting that will be held on 8-9 October 2026 at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. […]
Reviews of Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, The Pain Brokers: How Con Men, Call Centers, and Rogue Doctors Fuel America’s Lawsuit Factory (January 2026)
The Shame of Mass Torts (Anthony Sebok): The Pain Brokers by Prof Elizabeth Burch (Georgia) describes the terrible treatment suffered by a group of women who had a defective surgical device implanted into their bodies. Unlike the more familiar stories about products liability involving DES or asbestos, The Pain Brokers focuses not on the wrongdoing […]
Elias Van Gool, ‘Product Liability in a More Circular Economy: A Study of Liability for Alternative Methods of Distributing and Producing Durable Consumer Goods’
ABSTRACT Specific, more strict theories of product liability, which have now largely been maximally harmonised in the EU, have developed on the basis of a linear economic model. By using doctrinal and economic legal research, this thesis examines the state of EU product liability law and how it is tested by alternative, circular economic methods […]
Jo Helme, ‘Do Unpaid Internships Breach Equality Law?’
ABSTRACT One of the pervasive legal questions surrounding unpaid internships is whether they are compliant with equality law. This speculation, however, has not yet faced judicial determination. This article analyses the merits of such a claim, focusing specifically on whether the EU recommendation that permits unpaid internships can be regarded as ‘invalid’ for discriminating based […]
Fatjon Kaja, ‘The Asking Price of Incorporation: State Leverage and the Evolution of Corporate Purpose’
ABSTRACT This article advances a new perspective on corporate purpose, grounded in the institutional conditions under which corporate privileges are granted. Using a novel dataset of historical UK royal charters and a mixed-methods empirical strategy, the study shows that early corporations articulated specific, enforceable, and public facing purpose clauses because incorporation was a scarce privilege […]
Frank Pham, ‘Comparative Law of Cross-Border Patent Infringement: A Jurisprudential Analysis of the United States and Japan’
ABSTRACT Historically, patent enforcement relied on the strict principle of territoriality, a doctrine that is increasingly destabilized by distributed networks, cloud computing, and the placement of servers overseas. This research provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of how the United States and Japan address the jurisprudential challenges of cross-border patent infringement and divided multi-actor infringement within […]