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This book is the first to examine intermediaries in a holistic and systematic manner. The classical model of face-to-face contracting between two individuals is no longer dominant. Instead, deals frequently involve a number of parties, often acting through intermediaries. As a result, it is important to understand the role and power of intermediaries. Intermediaries tend to be considered within discrete silos of the law. But by focussing upon a particular, narrow area of law, lessons are not learned from analogous situations. This book takes a broader approach, and looks across the traditional boundaries of private law in order to gain a proper assessment of the role played by intermediaries. A wide range of jurisdictions and topical issues are discussed in order to illuminate the role intermediaries play in commercial law. For example, the continued growth of electronic commerce requires consideration of the role of websites and other platforms as intermediaries. And developments in artificial intelligence raise the prospect of intermediaries being non-human actors. All these issues are subject to rigorous analysis by the expert contributors to this book.
List of contents
PrefaceContributorsTable of CasesTable of Legislation1. Introduction
Paul S Davies (University College London, UK) and Tan Cheng-Han SC (City University of Hong Kong)
2. The Fiduciary Status of Agents
Matthew Conaglen (University of Sydney, Australia)
3. Ministerial Acts
Rachel Leow (National University of Singapore)4. Justifications for and Limitations on Interventions by Undisclosed Principals
William Day (University of Cambridge / 3 Verulam Buildings, UK)5. Agency Theory Revisited and Practical Implications
Gerard McMeel KC (University of Reading, UK)6. Platform Liability for Terrorist Activities
Ying Hu (National University of Singapore)7. How Intermediaries Entrench Google's Position in the Advertising Display Market
Roger Alford (University of Notre Dame, USA)
8. The Platform as Agent
Deborah A DeMott (Duke University, USA)9. Online Intermediary Platforms and English Contract Law
Christian Twigg-Flesner (University of Warwick, UK)
10. Agency, Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Agreements
Tan Cheng-Han SC (City University of Hong Kong)11. Client-Intermediary Relations in the Crypto-Asset World
Hin Liu (University of Oxford, UK), Louise Gullifer (University of Cambridge, UK) and Henry Chong (Fusang Corp, Hong Kong)12. As Complex as ABC? Bona Fide Purchasers of Equitable Interests
Ben McFarlane (University of Oxford, UK) and Andreas Televantos (University of Oxford, UK)13. The Partner's Fiduciary and Good Faith Duties: More than Just an Agent?
Laura Macgregor (University of Edinburgh, UK)14. Debt Collection and Assignment of Debts: Navigating the Legal Maze
Jodi Gardner (University of Cambridge, UK) and Chee Ho Tham (Singapore Management University)
15. Financial Wellbeing - the Missing Link in Financial Advice under Private Law and Statute
Andrew Godwin (University of Melbourne, Australia), Wai Yee Wan (City University of Hong Kong) and Qinzhe Yao (Skandan Law LLC, Singapore)
16. Adjudicating Intermediary-Related Losses
Hans Tjio (National University of Singapore)17. Intermediaries as 'Gatekeepers' in International and Domestic Regulation
Alexander Loke (City University of Hong Kong)18. A Fine Balance: Insolvency Practitioners and the Leveraging of Intermediary Power
Sarah Paterson (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)
About the author
Paul S Davies is Professor of Commercial Law at UCL and a Barrister at Essex Court Chambers. He was previously a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and St Catherine's College, Oxford. Paul has also worked at the Law Commission. He is the author of Accessory Liability (Hart Publishing, 2015; revised paperback edition, 2017), which won the main Inner Temple Book Prize in 2018, JC Smith’s The Law of Contract (3rd ed, OUP, 2021), and a co-author of Equity and Trusts: Text, Cases and Materials (3rd ed, OUP, 2019 (with Graham Virgo)). Paul is also an editor of both Chitty on Contracts and Snell's Equity. In 2020 Paul was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law.
Photo courtesy of Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.
Tan Cheng-Han SC is Dean and Chair Professor of Commercial Law at City University of Hong Kong.
Summary
This book is the first to examine intermediaries in a holistic and systematic manner. The classical model of face-to-face contracting between two individuals is no longer dominant. Instead, deals frequently involve a number of parties, often acting through intermediaries. As a result, it is important to understand the role and power of intermediaries.
Intermediaries tend to be considered within discrete silos of the law. But by focussing upon a particular, narrow area of law, lessons are not learned from analogous situations. This book takes a broader approach, and looks across the traditional boundaries of private law in order to gain a proper assessment of the role played by intermediaries.
A wide range of jurisdictions and topical issues are discussed in order to illuminate the role intermediaries play in commercial law. For example, the continued growth of electronic commerce requires consideration of the role of websites and other platforms as intermediaries. And developments in artificial intelligence raise the prospect of intermediaries being non-human actors. All these issues are subject to rigorous analysis by the expert contributors to this book.
Foreword
This is the first book to consider the role of intermediaries in commercial law in a holistic and systematic manner.
