BUS201 Examination Report JAN 2021 PDF

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EXAMINATION REPORTCourse Code/Title : BUS201 – Contract & Agency LawSemester : J ANUARY 2021 SEMESTERPART IOverall Performance of Students in the Examination:In general, many students were able to identify the relevant legal issues in the questions and discuss at least some of the relevant legal...

Description

EXAMINATION REPORT

Course Code/Title

: BUS201 – Contract & Agency Law

Semester

: JANUARY 2021 SEMESTER

PART I Overall Performance of Students in the Examination: In general, many students were able to identify the relevant legal issues in the questions and discuss at least some of the relevant legal principles. The better answer scripts were able to apply the legal principles correctly based on the context of the given scenarios in the questions. In general, students performed well for Question 1 (relating to contract formation in an auction context), Question 2 (relating to the comparison of terms and representations, and classification of a pre-contractual statement) and Question 4 (relating to the duties of an agent). A number of students did not perform well for Question 3, which relates to the four aspects of damages (namely, causation, remoteness, mitigation and assessment). Given the nature of the examination as a Timed Online Assignment (TOA), a few students provided an excessive amount of content in their electronic submissions, including the discussion of irrelevant legal principles. Students should note that such a practice (of including excessive and irrelevant material in their answers) is unproductive, and may detract from the relevant parts of their answer. While many students were able to cite supporting case law and statutory provisions (where applicable) when stating the legal principles, a few students did not do so. Students should note that marks are also allocated for the citation of relevant case law and statutory provisions (where applicable), and so they should remember to do so in their answers.

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Strengths and Weaknesses of Students in Examination:

Key strengths: •

Students who performed well were able to state the relevant legal principles correctly using the appropriate terminology. They were also able to apply these principles in a logical and persuasive manner based on the facts of the scenarios in the questions.

•

The better answer scripts were relatively comprehensive in addressing the requirements of the question, and there was ample citation of relevant case law and statutory provisions (where applicable) to support the legal principles.

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The higher quality answers also tended to be well-structured with a logical flow that corresponded closely to the requirements of the question.

Key weaknesses: •

A number of students did not cite case law and statutory provisions (even where applicable) at all.

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Some of the scripts which did not do well had failed to address the requirements of the question in a sufficiently comprehensive way. For example, Question 3 tested students on the four aspects of damages. Some students provided only very brief conclusions on each of the four aspects of damages (without stating the legal principles, case law, and applying them to the facts of the scenario).

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As mentioned earlier, given the nature of the examination as a Timed Online Assignment with electronic submission of answer scripts, some students provided an excessive amount of content in their answers, including the discussion of irrelevant legal principles.

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Students should also be careful to avoid plagiarism concerns, as it was noted in some cases that students copied text from other sources or their own prior assignments, without taking appropriate measures such as including an in-text citation and using double quotation marks where necessary.

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PART II Overall performance for each Question: Question 1 Question 1 tested students on the elements of contract formation in the context of an auction.

Strengths: •

In general, most students were able to state the relevant legal principles relating to the concepts of invitation to treat, offer, acceptance, consideration and the intention to create legal relations.

•

Many students were able to correctly explain that the newspaper advertisement is likely to be an invitation to treat, the bids submitted by interested audience members would constitute the offer, and the “fall of the hammer” (or announcement in any other customary manner) by Jackson would constitute the acceptance.

Weaknesses: •

Some students did not adequately address all four elements of contract formation. This is despite the question making it clear that students “should identify and discuss the four elements of a contract”. Some students only chose to discuss the elements of offer and acceptance (without discussing the elements of consideration and intention to create legal relations).

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A number of students answered the question in a general way (i.e. as if they were writing a general essay, and without using the appropriate terminology). These answer scripts did not refer to the appropriate legal principles, nor the given context. This is not the correct approach. Students should note that legal questions should be approached in a certain way, requiring the correct provision of relevant legal principles (and citation of case law and statutory provisions where applicable), and then applying them logically and persuasively to the relevant facts of the given scenario to reach appropriate conclusions.

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Question 2 Question 2 tested students on the comparison of terms and representations, and further required students to classify a given pre-contractual statement as a term or representation using the five guidelines from the case law.

Strengths: •

Many students were able to identify at least some of the guidelines (and cite the relevant case law for each guideline), and apply them to the facts of the scenario to reach an appropriate conclusion.

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Higher quality answers were able to systematically, logically and persuasively apply all five of the guidelines in the case law. Such answers would also clearly state the objective test, and highlight the holistic approach to the application of the guidelines.

Weaknesses: •

A number of students did not discuss all the five guidelines from the case law. They only chose to discuss certain guidelines which tended to support their preferred conclusion. This does not meet the requirement of the question which required students to apply “all the five guidelines from the case law”.

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In some scripts, students simply repeated statements of fact from the question, without any analysis or reference to the appropriate legal principle. For example, they state that Steve issued an invoice to Terence, and hence the statement is a term. This is not an adequate answer. Instead, students should have a logical structure to their analysis:

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Many students did not appreciate that the approach to classification in this context is a holistic endeavour. In other words, while some guidelines may point the students towards the classification as a “term”, and other guidelines point them towards classification as a “representation”, students would need to assess the situation in a holistic way to form a position. Further, this position would need to be clearly expressed in the students’ conclusion, i.e. students would need to conclude whether they think, given the overall situation, the statement is likely to be a term, or representation.

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Some students misunderstood the question, and chose to discuss misrepresentation and/or repudiatory breach instead (where these are not required by the question). Students should read the question carefully, before providing their answer.

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Question 3 Question 3 tested students on the four aspects of damages (i.e. causation, remoteness, mitigation and assessment), as applied to a retail scenario.

Strengths: •

Many students were able to identify the four aspects of damages as causation, remoteness, mitigation and assessment.

•

Higher quality answers were able to competently discuss the legal principles under each aspect of damages (with adequate citation of case law to support the legal principles), and apply them correctly to the scenario.

Weaknesses: •

Some students only superficially discussed each aspect of damages (e.g. by simply stating that the losses are too remote), without reference to the legal principles.

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The answers in some scripts showed that some students had difficulty in the correct application of the two limbs of the rule in Hadley v Baxendale (1854), when discussing the aspect of remoteness of damages.

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Question 4 Question 4 tested students solely on the five duties of an agent.

Strengths: •

Many students were able to state all five duties of an agent (and cite relevant case law), and discuss whether they were breached based on the facts of the scenario.

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Students were generally also able to define the concept of agency using the appropriate terminology, and correctly identify who is the principal, agent and third parties in the scenario.

Weaknesses: •

A number of students did not discuss all the duties of an agent. Some students also misapplied the principles, and incorrectly associated some of the facts in the scenario with some of the duties.

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Some scripts did not cite the relevant case law that is associated with each duty of an agent.

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Quite a number of students included an irrelevant discussion on the creation of agency via actual authority and apparent authority. This is not required by the question.

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A few answer scripts merely restated the facts given in the scenario, without reference to the relevant duty of the agent at law. For example, such as script may point out that Vanessa should not have taken some of the baked products from the business for her personal event. However, the script does not go further to discuss that the agent’s duty to avoid conflict of interests may therefore have been breached.

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