More and more, American lawyers are required to practice globally, and this course will expose students to an important aspect of international transactional practice -- the establishment of foreign subsidiaries. This course will focus on how a U.S. attorney might create a business entity in Australia and New Zealand, but the concepts learned and legal analysis used will provide you with basic skills and knowledge that can be transferable to other countries as well.
This course, Transnational Legal Practice (Semester I, CRN 50010), will be completed in one week. The take-home exam deals with a transaction in which a Texas domiciled company forms one company in Australia and one in New Zealand and then embarks upon land purchases and construction projects. Ultimately, the Texas company exits the transaction by way of a trade sale or an initial public offering. Students will assume the role of an associate in a law firm that acts for the Texas company. Students will be tasked with writing a set of internal memos on various aspects of the transaction.
A key focus is on the company and securities laws of Australia and New Zealand. Each of these jurisdictions adopted United Kingdom company law and later modified that law. The class will look at the statutory law of these jurisdictions from the point of view of a North American lawyer structuring transactions in Australia and New Zealand. These kinds of cross-border commercial transactions are usually dealt with (but in a much more cursory way) in a general International Business Transactions course.
The course will focus on a common set of issues that must often be confronted in such transactions. These issues can be broken down into three large themes. The first is legal history or comparative legal traditions; the second is the statutory company and securities law of Australia and New Zealand; and the third is transaction planning.
Dr. Walker is the Professor of Commercial Law at La Trobe University School of Law, Melbourne, Australia where he is Director of the LLM in Global Business Law and the LLM for International Students programs. He formerly served as the Head of the Law School.
Professor Walker has extensive experience in this field and a global reputation. Among other things, he consults with the Asian Development Bank on company law reform in the South Pacific and with the European Bank for Re-construction and Development on concessions/PPPs; securities markets and corporate governance. We are fortunate to have him as a guest professor.
