1. Research and prepare a written research paper, including a bibliography, on the Research Paper Topic (below).
2. Demonstrate your research methodology and knowledge of legal resources particularly relevant to corporate law by completing a Research Methodology (details provided on the LWB334 Blackboard site).

Due: This assessment item is due Week 8 ? by 4:00pm on Thursday 12 September 2013, (but the normal grace period applies to 9:45pm on the due date): http://www.student.qut.edu.au/about/faculties-institutes-and-divisions/faculties/law/ug-student-resources/assessment/assignment-submission.
Weight: The assignment is worth 40% of the total marks for the unit.
Learning objectives: The Research Paper and Methodology assessment item relates to unit objectives 1-7.
Word limit: The Research Paper has a word limit of 2,500 words.
The Research Methodology has a page limit of 2.5 pages.
Please note: The QUT Law School policy on word limits is strictly imposed. Where the word / page limit is exceeded, words in excess of the word limit will not be read.
Assessment criteria: The Criteria Referenced Assessment Sheets for both the Research Paper and Research Methodology are available on the Blackboard site. Please refer to these criteria in preparing your assignment and attach the sheet to your submission.

YOU MAY COMPLETE THIS ASSESSMENT INDIVIDUALLY OR IN GROUPS OF A MAXIMUM OF THREE (3) STUDENTS. As the group completion is optional, any issues that arise as part of the group work will need to be addressed by students involved and not the LWB334 teaching team.

Your Research Paper and Research Methodology must comply with the Written Assessment in the Law School: Legal Citation (WALS) (refer to link in your QUT Blackboard Assessment folder or under Publications in the Law Student Zone).
Part 1 of the WALS provides that unless otherwise specified, your written assessment is to be formatted as follows:
? Times New Roman or Arial font in 12 point
? 1.5 line spacing
? Page margins at a minimum of 2.5 cm (left, right, top and bottom)
Research Paper Topic

Section 1043A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) prohibits certain conduct related to trading, procuring and communication of financial products where a person is in possession of inside information, and the person knows, or ought reasonably to know, that the information is inside information.

In the context of this section, discuss the manner in which ?inside information? is defined by both legislation and case law. In addition, critically evaluate the effectiveness of the insider trading legislative regime in terms of achieving its underlying policy objectives.

Word limit: The Legal Research Methodology must be a maximum of 2.5 pages. This assessment is to be attached to your research paper. You must comply with the format requirements of the Written Assessment in the Law School (WALS). That is, you must use either Times New Roman or Arial font in 12 point, 1.5 line spacing and page margins at a minimum of 2.5 cm (left, right, top and bottom).
Learning objectives:
The Legal Research Methodology will assess the following unit objectives:
? UO2: analyse and synthesise the legal principles emerging from the relevant legislation (including relevant established principles of statutory interpretation) and case law with respect to registered companies to apply them to real world corporate problems; and
? UO5: use advanced research strategies to locate and evaluate legal resources of corporate law.
The learning objectives relate to Graduate Capabilities 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 expected of a student in their final year/s of studies. That is, the learning objectives relate to the Graduate Capabilities as follows:
? GC2.1 Recognise and define a complex range of legal issues from a series of given fact scenarios.
? GC2.2 Use current technologies and advanced research strategies to locate and evaluate relevant primary and secondary legal material from a variety of sources and jurisdictions.
? CG2.3 Extract, synthesise and critically evaluate legal principles and relevant policy considerations from primary and secondary sources.
You will be assessed on your ability to research and evaluate various legal sources, extract and analyse relevant corporate law authorities and principles, and use these authorities and principles to construct critical legal and policy arguments in a real world context. You will also be assessed on your ability to evaluate and reflect of your legal research skills, including your ability to recognise and correct gaps in your knowledge and capabilities.
Before commencing your research, you should analyse the research topic by identifying the nature of the research (for example: theoretical/conceptual; comparative; or practical problem solving); the jurisdiction and the relevant issues and subject area(s) of corporate law. You do not need to include this in your research methodology paper, as you will be marked on your ability to identify relevant issues in the Research Paper CRA (refer Research Paper Marking Criterion 1). However, your research will be much more effective and efficient if you perform some initial analysis of the topic and issues and so your ability to identify legal issues is implicit in the tasks required below.
LEGAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY TASKS
Task 1: Research Plan and Evaluation of Sources (5 marks)
You are required to briefly describe your overall research strategy, in particular the primary and secondary sources of law that are required to address the issues raised by the research topic and what databases are most appropriate to your research. For example, do you need Commonwealth, State or international sources of law? Do you commence with legislation-based research? Or case law? Do you need to do some background reading prior to research, and if so, what information do you need? This part should be no longer than one or two paragraphs.
You are also required to critically evaluate the relevance of the two (2) sources of law that you have located. You are required to evaluate one judicial authority (ie case law) and one secondary source (for example, journal articles) that
you relied upon the most in answering this research problem.
Evaluate your sources using the following criteria: currency, jurisdiction, perspective, persuasiveness, relevance, reliability and/or synthesis of argument. You will be familiar with these criteria from your studies in earlier units, such as Constitutional Law. Remember, you only need to evaluate your sources of law using criteria that as applicable. Further, your evaluation must be concise and show that you understand what sources of law are required to address the legal issues that arise in the research paper.

Task 2: Reflection and Evaluation of Your Research Strategy (5 marks)
Research is a cyclical process. Once your research in any area is complete, you should reflect on your approach and consider what you can do to improve in future.
You are required to reflect upon your research strategy and identify some issues you came across in carrying out your research and what you learnt from those issues. For example, did the same search terms in different databases give different results? What can you do to improve in future?
You will be assessed on the quality of your reflection. By the time you study Corporate Law, your reflective practice should have moved from the simple ?reporting? of research strategies (for example ?I discovered that Westlaw is a very useful database?) to the more complex and advanced ?reasoning? and ?reconstruction? stages of reflective practice. Some examples of the types of questions you might consider when reflecting on your research methodology include (but are not confined to) the following:
? What are the significant factors underlying the effectiveness (or otherwise) of your research process?
? How relevant was particular aspect of the research you carried out to your understanding the research problem, and why?
? What other research methods might have been used?
? What particular issues did you face with your research and how will you deal with those issues in future?
? Is there any specific literature that you can refer to in terms of improving your research technique? Are your ideas for improvement supported by the literature?