This is a 30 credit course, studying the Shakespeare canon in its integrity, approached from a legal perspective (very broadly defined). The object will be to give students a sophisticated understanding of (a) a representative selection of Shakespeare texts (poems as well as plays); (b) Shakespeare's life and times; (c) literary-critical principles; (d) Law and Literature studies.

The first quarter of the course will give an overview of Shakespeare’s life, work and times (with particular attention to his engagement with law), before identifying some crucial literary, legal and theoretical questions, which students will be revisiting as they move, in the remainder of the course, to studying a selection of plays and poems in depth. The plays and poems will be chosen to give a sense of Shakespeare’s range and diversity.

The course will also include a field-trip to see a performance of a relevant Shakespeare play.

The module examines how companies finance their operations: by raising equity or debt capital, using forms of mezzanine financing, or relying on their retained...

The module examines how companies finance their operations: by raising equity or debt capital, using forms of mezzanine financing, or relying on their retained earnings.

We will approach the topic from both a finance and a legal perspective. We will discuss basic concepts of corporate valuation and theories of capital structure, including some of the cornerstones of finance theory, such as discounted cash flow and the capital asset pricing model.

These concepts will inform our analysis of the legal framework governing the capital structure of companies. Our discussion will cover the nature of legal capital, minimum capital rules and the capital maintenance regime pursuant to the UK Companies Act 2006, including the regulation of distributions, capital reductions, share buy-backs and redeemable shares.

The second part of the module will concentrate on issuing debt and equity. We will again consider the legal framework against the backdrop of finance theory, notably questions of market efficiency and the challenge that behavioural finance poses to the efficient capital market hypothesis.

We will consider both the corporate law requirements that apply when a company raises equity or debt capital and the extensive requirements of securities regulation that govern the public offering of equity and debt securities and their listing on regulated markets.

The module focuses on UK law, with references to relevant EU legislation and some other legal systems (particularly US law) where this is helpful to illustrate differences in approaches to regulation and shortcomings of particular regulatory solutions.

Background knowledge in finance is not required, but students should be willing to engage with the finance literature and familiarise themselves with key concepts of finance theory.