Purpose: The Group Assignment aims to provide students with an opportunity to work in a collaborative environment in reporting on a recent Australian Corporations Law case relating to Directors Duties and Breaches of Directors Duties.
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 (maximum) in-class or video presentation.
Instructions: Please read and re-read carefully to avoid mistakes.
General instructions: Research on an Australian case (ideally not more than 10 years old since the decision by the Court) involving breach of company director’s/officer’s duties under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). You may also refer to the list of suggested cases attached to these instructions.
Group report (10%)
1. Write a report with the following headings and discussing the following:
a. Case introduction
This part must give the background of the case and cite the relevant facts that led to litigation. Please cite only the substantive facts of the case and not procedural facts.
b. Breaches of directors’ duties under the Corporations Act 2001(Cth)
In this part, discuss the facts that led to charges of breaches of directors’ duties being brought against the directors of the company.
You must then discuss the directors duties/responsibilities breached (ex, CA sections 181 or 588G) and explain why the duties were breached. You must refer to specific facts cited in the decision.
In the event that the court held that the directors did not breach their duties, explain why the court made this finding. You must refer to specific facts cited by the court.
c. Analysis of the Court’s decision
In this part, you must discuss and critically analyse the court/tribunal decision and the reason for the decision in view of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
Here, you may also refer to similar cases that have been decided at the High Court or Federal Court level and compare them with the case you have chosen.
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HA3021 Corporations Law Group Assignment 2019
d. Relevance and impact of the decision
For this part, you are expected to discuss the relevance of the decision to the development of Australian corporations law or the impact of the decision on the operation of companies in Australia.
All the cases listed in the list of suggested cases are famous and seminal cases. To sufficiently discuss part d, you are expected to research the writings of other legal scholars, law professors, and noted legal practitioners who have written about your chosen case.
2. As a minimum, the report must have the four headings listed above. Your report may have additional sections apart from the above (ex. Executive Summary, Conclusion, etc.) These, however, are not required.
3. The Group report must be submitted via SafeAssign on Blackboard.
4. The word count for the report is 2,000 word, with a 10% allowance under or over the 2,000 word limit. Please write the total word count for your report on the assignment cover sheet.
5. A minimum of six (6) scholarly and academic references must be cited. One of these sources must be the case that is the topic of the report. The references must be cited both in-text and in a reference list at the end of the report.
Group presentation (10%)
1. Present the report in class or video recording. Your lecturer will advise which is more appropriate.
a. If in-class presentation, all members must present on the day. If video presentation, groups must show to the satisfaction of the lecturer that all group members made a reasonable contribution to the group work.
b. Non-compliance with this requirement may result in a failing mark for the entire group.
2. If your group is doing a video presentation, your video link must be uploaded to a publicly-viewable video sharing platform (ex. Youtube, Dropbox, Google drive) and the video link uploaded on Blackboard.
3. Whether in-class or video presentation, the minimum presentation length is 10 minutes and should not exceed 15 minutes.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS: You must email your lecturer your chosen case and list of group members by week 5. You must obtain approval from your lecturer of your case before starting work on it. Please note: failure to obtain lecturer approval will result in a failing mark for the entire group for the group assignment. 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.
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HA3021 Corporations Law Group Assignment 2019
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 is equivalent to non-submission, which will merit a mark of 0 (zero) for the whole group for this assessment.
Groups of less than 3 and more than 5 people will receive an automatic penalty of 50% of the total assessment weight (10 marks).
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