Misunderstanding the economic torts

Topic: Misunderstanding the economic torts

Presenter: Professor Allan Beever - Professor of Law, University of South Australia

The decision of the House of Lords in OBG v Allan [2008] 1 AC 1; [2007] UKHL 21 has rekindled interest in (what we now know as) the torts of causing loss by unlawful means and inducing breach of contract. The result has been a flurry of attempts to explain the basis of these actions and this talk examines the most important of them. It argues that they are unsound. For the most part, this is because they locate the tortfeasor's wrong in a violation of the rights of a third party, implausibly implying that the plaintiff was in no way wronged. The talk finishes by suggesting how we must reconfigure our understanding of these torts. 

Allan is Professor of Law at the University of South Australia. He has previously held positions at the Universities of Ottawa, Southampton, Durham and Auckland and at the Max Plank Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg. He has won significant awards for his research, including a von Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, UK. He specialises in the areas of tort law, the law of obligations, legal theory, philosophy of law, comparative law and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. 

All welcome.

Contact: Law Events, email: events@law.uq.edu.au