This casebook presents a deep comparative analysis of property law systems in Europe (i.e. the law of immovables, movables, and claims), offering signposts and stepping stones for the reader wishing to explore this fascinating area. The subject matter is explained with careful attention given to its history, foundations, thought-patterns, underlying principles, and basic concepts. The casebook focuses on uncovering differences and similarities between Europe's major legal systems - French, German, Dutch, and English law are examined, while Austrian and Belgian law are also touched upon. The book combines excerpts from primary source materials (case law and legislation) and from doctrine and soft law. In doing so, it presents a faithful picture of the systems concerned. Separate chapters deal with the various types of property rights, their creation, transfer, and destruction, along with security rights (such as mortgages, pledges, retention of title), as well as with harmonizing and unifying efforts at the EU and global level. Through the functional approach taken by the Ius Commune Casebooks series, this volume clearly demonstrates that traditional comparative insights no longer hold. The law of property used to be regarded as a product of historical developments and political ideology, which were considered to be almost set in stone and assumed to render any substantial form of harmonization or approximation very unlikely. Even experienced comparative lawyers considered the divide between common law and civil law to be so deep that no common ground (so it was thought) could be found. However, economic integration - in particular, integration of financial markets and freedom of establishment - has led to the integration of particular areas of property law, such as mortgage law and enforceable security instruments (e.g. retention of title). This pressure towards integration has led comparative lawyers to refocus their interest from contract, tort, and unjustified enrichment to property law and to delve beneath its surface. This book reveals that today's property law systems are closer to one another than previously assumed, that common ground can be found, and that differences can be analyzed in a new light to enable comparison and further the development of property law in Europe. (Series: Ius Commune Casebooks for the Common Law of Europe)

Although the trust is generally seen as a creation of the common law tradition, modern civilian systems are increasingly interested in incorporating the trust institution. This collection of essays explores multiple civilian experiences with the trust. The reform of Quebec's trust institution attracted worldwide attention in 1994. Louisiana's 1964 Trust Code stands in an uneasy relationship with its general law of property. Israel has had a fascinating pluralist experience of multiples trusts. The People's Republic of China passed a Trust Law in 2001 and the development of the trust in this important economy is a matter of great interest and some controversy. France adopted a trust in 2007, and in Italy, trusts can be created through the choice of foreign governing law, under the Hague Trusts Convention. The concluding chapter draws conclusions from all the essays and sets out challenges for future research in the comparative law of trusts.

This book explores the concept of beneficial ownership in equity law, the domestic tax laws of the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, as well as its varied and increasing uses in international tax law. By analysing the evolution of beneficiary rights in equity and the use of beneficial ownership wording in tax law, the book draws a roadmap for dealing with beneficial ownership in both national and international tax law. This approach highlights those common misconceptions that can be avoided by understanding the origins of the concept and its engagement with equity, as well as the differences with tax law. However, the book does not limit itself to dealing with theoretical discussion, but also offers an instructive and detailed practical case study. Offering both academic commentary and a practitioner focus, the book will be of the utmost interest to scholars and practitioners from common and civil law countries dealing with tax and estate law, particularly given beneficial ownership's increasing relevance.

At a time when Asia represents the fastest growing economic region, there is no better moment to consider what trusts law can contribute to societal stability and economic prosperity. This book does this by offering the first work that systematically explores trusts law across the region. Many Asian-Pacific jurisdictions have integrated and developed trusts law in their legal systems; either through colonial heritage or statutory activism. But the diversity of legal traditions and local contexts has resulted in trusts laws having a significantly varied impact across the region. In the modern globalised world there is growing need to adopt an outward looking approach in dealing with matters of common interest. This book answers this need by bringing together leading legal scholars and practitioners in the region to explore the theory and practice of trusts law, contextualised to specific jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific. Exploring 17 jurisdictions in Asia, it bring both an academic and practitioner perspective to trusts law in the region.

Commercial relationships give rise to diverse forms of legal obligation in private law, including contract, tort, agency, company law and partnership. More controversially, equity and the law of restitution have a less defined and somewhat ambulatory role in regulating the affairs of commercial parties. Nevertheless, their impact is manifest in the commercial arena through the distinct types of liability they engender and the remedies that are imposed. This collection draws together the views of leading international scholars and judges to explore the nature and extent of this impact from two perspectives. Five chapters primarily address this impact at a macro-level, focusing on the roles of equity and the law of restitution in terms of legal taxonomy, doctrine and policy. In contrast, five further chapters primarily address this impact at a micro-level, focusing on selected liabilities and remedies within equity and the law of restitution. This bifocal approach enables a holistic appreciation of some important ways in which equity and the law of restitution affect or may affect commerce, with a view to fostering further debate over the fundamental issues at stake.

This collection of essays investigates the way in which modern private law apportions responsibility between multiple parties who are (or may be) responsible for the same legal event. It examines both doctrines and principles that share responsibility between plaintiffs and defendants, on the one hand, and between multiple defendants, on the other. The doctrines examined include those 'originating' doctrines which operate to create shared liabilities in the first place (such as vicarious and accessorial liability); and, more centrally, those doctrines that operate to distribute the liabilities and responsibilities so created. These include the doctrine of contributory (comparative) negligence, joint and several (solidary) liability, contribution, reimbursement, and 'proportionate' liability, as well as defences and principles of equitable 'allowance' that permit both losses and gains to be shared between parties to civil proceedings. The work also considers the principles which apportion liability between multiple defendants and insurers in cases in which the cause, or timing, of a particular loss is hard to determine. The contributions to this volume offer important perspectives on the law in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as a number of civilian jurisdictions. They explicate the main rules and trends and offer critical insights on the growth and distribution of shared responsibilities from a number of different perspectives - historical, comparative, empirical, doctrinal and philosophical.

The development of private law across the common law world is typically portrayed as a series of incremental steps, each one delivered as a result of judges dealing with marginally different factual circumstances presented to them for determination. This is said to be the common law method. According to this process, change might be assumed to be gradual, almost imperceptible. If this were true, however, then even Darwinian-style evolution - which is subject to major change-inducing pressures, such as the death of the dinosaurs - would seem unlikely in the law, and radical and revolutionary paradigms shifts perhaps impossible. And yet the history of the common law is to the contrary. The legal landscape is littered with quite remarkable revolutionary and evolutionary changes in the shape of the common law. The essays in this volume explore some of the highlights in this fascinating revolutionary and evolutionary development of private law. The contributors expose the nature of the changes undergone and their significance for the future direction of travel. They identify the circumstances and the contexts which might have provided an impetus for these significant changes. The essays range across all areas of private law, including contract, tort, unjust enrichment and property. No area has been immune from development. That fact itself is unsurprising, but an extended examination of the particular circumstances and contexts which delivered some of private law's most important developments has its own special significance for what it might indicate about the shape, and the shaping, of private law regimes in the future.

Constructive trusts significantly interfere with the rights of an apparent legal owner of property. This makes it necessary for their imposition to be properly explained and justified. Unfortunately, attempts to rationalise constructive trusts as a whole-as opposed to specific doctrines or particular aspects of constructive trusts-have been few and far between. Rationalising Constructive Trusts proposes a new structure for a coherent understanding of constructive trusts. By using a combination of conceptual tools, it provides answers to a number of crucial questions, for example: What are the ingredients of a constructive trust claim? What are the limits of constructive trusts? How can we rationalise the imposition of constructive trusts in particular situations? Why do judges exercise varying degrees of remedial discretion in different doctrines? From a wider perspective, the structured understanding helps us to appreciate the precise ambit and role of express, constructive, and resulting trusts.

This collection of essays, written by leading commentators from across the common law world, examines a range of topics concerning equity and trusts in the commercial context. The essays investigate the way in which doctrines derived from the equitable jurisdiction interact with and shape various areas of the law, including company law, commercial law and agency law. Subjects considered include the difficulties in identifying trust assets in the commercial context; the court's role in supervising the trust; and the remedies available in cases of fiduciary or trustee wrongdoing. This book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners working in these difficult areas of equity and commercial law.

This book is intended to meet a range of different needs and to cater for different levels of knowledge about employee ownership. If you are considering making your company employee-owned or you are advising someone going through that process, and in either case are new to the topic, you can build up your knowledge levels from Chapter 1. Alternatively, the book can be used as a reference work if you have a particular question to answer.Some parts of the book will not be relevant to every reader. For example, several Chapters consider how employees can acquire shares personally: these will not be relevant to companies which intend their employee ownership only to be through an employee trust. The book is intended as practical guide rather than a highly detailed technical treatise. Its priority is to explain key issues in an accessible fashion and to raise awareness of where further exploration and advice may be important.

Divided into two main parts, part one `Equity' outlines the history and development of equity as a body of law before delving into the application of the equitable remedies. Part two, `The Trust', examines the history and origin of the trust as an equitable remedy and charts its expansion. It examines the creation and validity of different types of trusts and their administration. In Principles of the Law of Equity and Trusts in Ireland the author draws on her experience in teaching this topic in both Ireland and England at undergraduate and post graduate levels to bring together a text which is intelligible and user friendly.

Equity in Practice consists of nine parts and 48 chapters. Part One of the book analyses the primary and secondary precepts of equity in a comprehensive and unique fashion. Part Two undertakes an in-depth study of the various equitable principles, doctrines and remedies and conditions, prerequisites and criteria for their application by the courts. Part Three identifies and analyses the conditions that must be shown to exist before the courts may apply the equitable principles of proprietary estoppel, promissory estoppel and estoppel by convention. Part Four presents the full array of injunctive relief, including mareva, interlocutory and mandatory interlocutory and springboard injunctions, that may be granted by the court of equity in appropriate circumstances. Part Five considers in depth the creation of express trusts, conditional trusts and charitable trusts observing the essential elements for their creation and also matters that may terminate such trusts. Part Six undertakes an extensive analysis of the role, duties, powers and liabilities of executors and trustees in the administration and distribution of trust estates. Part Seven provides a comprehensive discourse of trusts that may be imposed by the court equity in the form of resulting, secret and constructive trusts, and also equitable gifts and survivorship rights that may arise out of joint bank accounts. Part Eight considers fully the types of equitable actions that may be instituted concerning trusts and the equitable principles and doctrines, ex parte and notice of motion applications, summary judgments or leave to defend, actions based on the equitable principle of account taken and lites pendentes. Part Nine, the final part of the book, formulates a concept of equity, suggests how equity may be revitalised by imposing an equitable duty on persons to behave in a conscionable manner when transacting or interacting with others, and considers the relationship between equity and natural law.