Alastair Hudson – Understanding Equity & Trusts

Alastair Hudson – Understanding Equity & Trusts

Book Description

Understanding Equity and Trusts is a sister text to Alastair Hudson’s leading textbook Equity and Trusts, that gives those unfamiliar with the subject a clear, accessible, readable and comprehensive overview of the main themes in this dynamic area of the law. Whether used at the beginning of studying this field, as an aid to study or in the period before examinations, this book provides the reader with an invaluable grounding in all of the key principles of equity and the law of trusts.

This book covers all of the topics that a student reader will encounter in any trusts law or general equity course. The text deals with express trusts, resulting and constructive trusts, the duties of trustees, breach of trust and tracing, commercial uses of trusts, charities, pensions, trusts of homes and equitable remedies.

The third edition has been revised and updated to include new material on investing trusts and trustee’s duties and the material on charities has been substantially rewritten in the light of the Charities Act 2006.

The law of trusts is built on simple basic principles. The approach of this book is to begin with a clear presentation of those principles before guiding the reader through the more complex issues which are the feature of examinations in this subject. The lively text includes a large number of straightforward examples to make the discussion of the general law more accessible.

AUTHOR

Alastair has written a large number of lively, original and scholarly books (twenty of them between 1996 and 2012, with several in multiple editions) on a uniquely broad range of legal fields. He is Professor of Equity & Finance Law at the University of Southampton, a National Teaching Fellow, and has been voted UK Law Teacher of the Year. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Academic Member of the Chancery Bar Association.

Outlines of his recent books are set out below.

As well as being an academic whose work has formed the basis for court judgments and which has been quoted by academics around the world, he is concerned above all else to engage his readers and to communicate clearly with them. So, books written for students are approachable, readable, helpful and occasionally even fun; books for practitioners are scholarly, practical and clear. All of his books contain a passion which is rare in legal writing.

Alastair has written in a number of new fields, especially in relation to the law on financial derivatives, securities law and the law of finance, in each of which he has established himself as one of the leading academic authorities in the world. Even when writing in more traditional fields his approach is innovative and exciting, always with the needs of his readers in mind. The Law of Finance is, for example, the first book of its kind in that subject – it combines a depth of scholarship about private law with a survey of the complete range of financial markets and products, and of the areas of financial regulation.

He has also pioneered a range of podcast and vidcast methods of teaching on his web-site (www.alastairhudson.com) to help students and practitioners alike, together with a wealth of essays which supplement his published books. That website also includes a number of works of fiction which build on his academic work. He has pioneered making his lectures, ideas and research available free on the internet, demonstrating his commitment to being a teacher first and foremost, and more importantly a teacher for anyone who wants to learn.

Alastair was for some years Professor of Equity & Law in the University of London (having taught first at King’s College and then at Queen Mary & Westfield College since 1993). From September 2012 he has been Professor of Equity and Finance Law at the University of Southampton. He worked in investment banking, practised at the Bar and was active in British politics, before focusing full-time on being an academic. He was a policy advisor to the British Labour Party on constitutional and legal affairs from 1992-97, and continues to provide advice on finance law and financial regulation policy today. In his spare time he walks on the South Downs, has ideas, and writes books.

Upcoming projects include analyses of: the great debates in equity and trusts law, the legal and regulatory contexts of the global financial crisis; of the law on trusts of homes; and of the idea of conscience in law.

*The Law of Finance*
Published in 2009, this book describes the entirety of finance law in a single, 1,400 page volume so that it can be taught to undergraduates as well as to postgraduates. The book covers (uniquely) the entirety of the scope of financial markets: banking and lending; securities; derivatives and collateralisation; stock-lending and repo’s; foreign exchange; collective investment and communal investment entities; mortgages and insurance regulation.

The book divides into two halves. The first half considers the regulatory fundamentals and the core principles of the substantive law which apply to finance; the second half considers how those principles apply to specific financial markets, as well as considering the standard market documentation used in those markets and their specific regulatory codes. It is a book which is based on twenty years of work in financial markets and as an academic. Each chapter begins with a summary of its contents; and the book contains a glossary of technical terms. The principles are illustrated with easy-to-understand examples as well as penetrating legal analysis.

The book is supported by podcasts and vidcasts. As well as discussion of over 1,000 cases, and many, many statutory and regulatory provisions, the references include thinkers as disparate as Aristotle (on the nature of money), John Maynard Keynes and Charles Dickens. It is an interesting and lively treatment of this fast-moving subject written by someone who has worked in the field and written about it over two millennia!

A separate, more up-to-date, practitioner version of this book was published in 2010.

*Equity & Trusts*
This hugely popular textbook is in its sixth edition; with a seventh edition to be published in 2012. Each chapter begins with a clear summary of the key principles, and the text is lightened with easy-to-follow worked examples (showing how the law affects real people and real situations). The discussion is broken up at the end of each Part of the book by essays which reflect on the key issues which have been raised: perspectives which assist essay-writing. This book is comprehensive and remains the most up-to-date, comprehensive book on the market with regular new editions and online updates to account for new cases and legislative developments in England and Wales and overseas. This is a textbook which is deeply scholarly but which was written to teach equity and trusts law to students, and not simply to impress other academics. This book has been cited in court in several jurisdictions, and is used increasingly by practitioners.

*The Law on Financial Derivatives*
This book remains the most significant, scholarly treatment of law relating to financial derivatives in the world. A new, fifth edition, published in 2012, considers the effects of the global financial crisis on the regulation of derivatives in the UK, in the EU and in the USA. (Alastair had long predicted the role derivatives would play in a financial crisis in earlier editions). The new regulatory environment in which derivatives operate is considered in detail.
Among the other significant changes is the analysis of the many new cases from the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Kaupthing. There is also a unique analysis of derivatives documentation and the new tax code and the slew of cases which have grown out of them in the UK.
This book is used extensively by practitioners and has been cited in the courts of numerous countries. The fifth edition in 2012 analyses two hundred new cases, new EU regulations, and several statutory developments in UK law. Alastair worked in the derivatives markets for a number of years for Citibank and Goldman Sachs respectively.

*Understanding Company Law*
This new book on company law published in 2011 takes an interesting, and at times radical, approach to this subject. (That much is evident from the cover, echoing boots of the type made by Aron Salomon in the foundational case in this subject – while every other book has a dull picture of an office building on its cover. The manufacture of boots and shoes is considered in relation to the businesses of modern companies like Nike and Salomon’s hiking and ski-wear in the 21st century in later chapters in this book.) The book’s tight analysis of key company law cases brings the subject to life, and discussions of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility mean that it is ideal for students at the many law schools which take a more progressive approach to this subject.