The [Portalegre] court’s … decision states that there is “unjust enrichment” in this operation because, as the loan was granted with the sole purpose of financing the property, by handing back the property the debt is extinguished.
Thus (probably) spoke a nineteenth century Irish judge, Sir James Mathew (1830-1908) (pictured left). The Ritz is now owned by David and Frederick Barclay, and they are at present locked in what the media are describing as “bitter” legal proceedings (in tabloid-speak, is there any other kind of legal dispute?) being taken against them in London by Irish businessman and property developer Paddy McKillen. McKillen and the Barclays own stakes in a high profile hotel group; and in these proceedings, McKillen alleges that the Barclays have been attempting to seize control of the group by unlawful means. He is no stranger to high-stakes litigation, having successfully thwarted the National Asset Management Agency in the Irish courts in Dellway Investments v NAMA [2011] IESC 4 (3 February 2011).
In the London proceedings, much dirty linen had already been laundered in public, and McKillen balked at the prospect of having to wash more, seeking an order of the court to keep sensitive information about his personal business financial affairs away from the prying eyes, not only of the media and the public, but also of the defendants! Unsurprisingly, the application failed (Irish Independent | Irish Times here and here | PA | RTÉ News).…
The Library of Trinity College Dublin dates back to the establishment of the College in 1592, and it is now the largest research library in Ireland. It was endowed with the privilege of legal deposit by the Copyright Act, 1801 and continues to receive copies of material published in the United Kingdom and Ireland, pursuant respectively to the Legal Deposit Libraries Act, 2003 and section 198 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here). The Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections in the Library, located in the East Pavilion of the Old Library, is responsible for some of the oldest and most valuable books in Ireland. The Department of Early Printed Books has just established a most wonderful blog about its work, entitled Tales of Mystery and Pagination. They explain the title as follows:
…In a effort to gain a loyal fan-base for our blog we have been inspired by the ever popular Harry Clarke and his contributions to the 1919 edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of mystery and imagination. Not content with behaving like a magpie for the blog’s title we have used three examples of Clarke’s work to help illustrate what we hope to be a lively and interesting site for anyone interested in books and libraries.
The Irish Association of Law Teachers (IALT) Spring Seminar will take place on Thursday 26 April 2012 next at 6.30pm in the IIIS Seminar Room, Room C6.002, 6th Floor, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin (map here). Professor William Binchy, Regius Professor of Laws, Trinity College and Professor David Gwynn Morgan, Professor Emeritus of Law, UCC will discuss
Law Reform and Social Transition.
A reception will follow and all are welcome; if you are interested in attending, please email the IALT in advance.
In related news, nominations for the 2012 Kevin Boyle Book Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship are now open and will close on 30 April 2012. This prize is awarded to a member of the IALT who has published a book in the twenty four months preceding the closing date that is deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to the understanding of law. The prize will be awarded at the IALT annual conference in Dublin in November.…
I’ve recently had the great good fortune to see The Muppets (2011) (imdb | official site | wikipedia). Like the recent classic movie Shrek Forever After, it is very much a movie about contract law: indeed, both movies turn on cultural assumptions about the binding nature and literal enforcement of written contracts.
Warning: plot spoilers At the end of The Muppet Movie (1979) (imdb | wikipedia), the Muppets are hired by studio executive Lew Lord (played – in a splendid cigar-chomping movie-stealing cameo – by Orson Welles) under “the standard rich-and-famous contract” (pictured above left). It has the generally assumed form of contracts: it is long; indeed, it is vveerry long – it contains a multitude of clauses, and those terms are the heart of the new movie: The Muppets. Nancy Kim on Contracts Prof Blog mentions a few of the issues:
…… the star of the new Muppets movie is a long, scrolled, fine print contract signed by none other than Kermit the Frog. The entire plot hinges on … a condition in the contract … A real live condition – but is it a condition precedent or condition subsequent? In addition, there are issues of nondisclosure (there’s oil under the theatre, but the evil Tex Richman isn’t telling).
I noticed the following report in Saturday’s Irish Times:
…Media challenges McKillen’s bid for secret hearings
Property developer Paddy McKillen’s bid to keep information about his financial dealings out of the public arena during a High Court case in London is to be challenged by a number of newspapers, including The Irish Times.
The third session of Thursday’s CAVE Seminar (pdf) on the National Strategy for Higher Education (the Hunt Report) divided into two workshops, one on Research (facilitator: Dr Aiden Seery (TCD); rapporteur: Dr Joan Lalor (TCD)), the other on Teaching and Learning (facilitator: Dr Ciara O’Farrell (TCD); rapporteur: yours truly). The workshops discussed many of the themes of the first two panels, and the rapporteurs’ reports to the final plenary session allowed those discussions to engage with one another. Proceeding from their separate starting points, there was a great deal of convergence in the analysis and conclusions of the two workshops, not least their agreement as to the flaws in the Hunt Report.
Both workshops bemoaned that modern policy is driving a wedge between research on the one hand, and teaching and learning on the other, as reflected in the titles and focus of the two workshops! Both workshops felt that it is crucial for HE to maintain and insist upon parity of esteem of between teaching and learning, on the one hand, with research on the other. However, both workshops felt that government policies and institutional strategies are increasingly favouring a particular kind of research. State funding is mostly for research, since it is easy to ascertain certain research inputs (money) and to measure certain research outputs (for example, PhD numbers, or peer-reviewed publications in the “right” journals in the “right” databases).…
The second panel of Thursday’s CAVE Seminar (pdf) on the National Strategy for Higher Education (the Hunt Report) concerned The Student Experience. It was chaired by Dr Patrick Geoghegan (TCD), and featured Martin McAndrew (Vice President, TCD GSU), Dr Mary-Liz Trant (HEA), Dr Austin Hanley (Athlone IT), and Dr Aiden Kenny (TUI). There were several connections between the first panel and this one. Two stood out. In this morning’s panel, Tony welcomed the emphasis in Hunt on generic skills as an important aspect teaching and learning, and he argued that there is no inherent conflict between academic values and employability skills. By way of contrast, in this panel, Austin recalled the negative impact of fees on student participation, and commented that “you have to have the opportunity to go to College to have a student experience”. Both of these themes recurred throughout this second panel.
Aiden explicitly argued that quality and cuts are antithetical, and although academic staff have so far managed to maintain academic quality and standards, a crisis point is nearing: the mounting workload is not sustainable, and (recalling a point made by Mike and Erika in the first panel) and the voice of academic expertise seems excluded from the development of policy in this area.…
© cearta.ie 2025. Powered by WordPress
