The corporate opportunity doctrine - A Critique of the Law in Australia

Description

A key Topic in two of the subjects I teach, LAW220 Business Organisations Law and LAW504 Business and Corporations Law is directors' duties. The doctrine that a director owes a fiduciary duty to the corporation on whose board he or she serves underlies those Topics. Students often find the application of this doctrine difficult in particular in relation to the question of whether / when a a director is permitted to take a business opportunity that falls within the corporation's area of operation. This article, published in the Canberra Law Review, addressed this question and sought to clarify what the law is.

Writing the article helped me to clarify and express the rules more clearly. This will be of benefit to my students in that by revising the Topic materials on Interact2, they will more easily be able to understand how the law operates and, in particular, will be able to apply it in assessment items when they are presented with a fact-based problem which raises the issue of whether a director has breached their fiduciary duties.

The article was published in the first half of 2021 and I was able to use it in revision of subject materials for 202160. It will be useful to evaluate the effect of these revisions on student understanding in light of their answers to assessment questions relating to this area of the law.

Period	01 Jan 2021 → 31 Dec 2021
Held at	Business
Degree of Recognition	National