DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCIAL LAW
The legal framework against which business decisions are made in the public and private sectors is the focus of the study of commercial law. Such study is essential to understand the environment in which business operates. Postgraduate study of commercial law also involves examination of the policy implications for business, and the wider community, of different legal rules.
The Department of Commercial Law has one of the largest groups of commercial lawyers in Australasia. There are over 20 full-time staff with a wide range of research and teaching interests in all areas of commercial law including corporate, intellectual property and information, governance, insolvency, international trade, securities markets, finance, insurance and taxation law. Members of the Department are highly-qualified and experienced academics or practitioners with recognised expertise who have made important contributions to the discipline by writing books or publishing regularly in top-ranked international journals. Together with the Faculty of Law, the Department runs the Research Centre for Business Law, which publishes the New Zealand Business Law Quarterly. The Commercial Law Department also hosts the New Zealand Governance Centre, which has links with other similar centres internationally and which, amongst its other activities, annually runs an international conference.
Student research is carefully arranged and mentored to ensure that the first research experience of all postgraduate students is as rewarding and intellectually stimulating as possible. The commercial law specialisation for the LLM offered in the Faculty of Law is open to law graduates and to those satisfying the requirements for the Master of Legal Studies and to BCom(Hons) and PGDipCom students meeting the required standard. The MTaxS programme is designed for both Law and Commerce graduates who intend to make tax advocacy or tax consulting their career and who wish to extend their understanding of the theoretical issues and legal structures that underpin the taxation system. The BCom(Hons) and PGDipCom in Commercial Law are particularly useful to those pursuing a career in corporate finance or merchant banking.
