14 May 2026 (Thursday), 6:00 – 7:00 PM
NEW VENUE: Room 708, 7/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong
Where a party contractually agrees to charge an asset or to assign it in equity, what is the basis on which the equitable interest (charge or assignment in equity) arises? The orthodox explanation is that it is because specific performance is available: equity sees as done what ought to be done. The orthodox position is wrong. The paper argues that charges and assignments are based on contracting party’s (grantor’s) intention. It considers the content of this intention, and the practical and conceptual implications of the new analysis.
Speaker
Magda Raczynska is Associate Professor of Law at UCL. She has written on personal property, obligations, and other aspects of commercial law. She was a lead contributor to the Secured Transactions Code developed by the City of London Law Society Financial Law Committee, executive co-director of the Secured Transactions Law Reform Project, and an expert contributor to European Law Institute’s project on European Business Code. She is the author of The Law of Tracing in Commercial Transactions (OUP 2018). She is the co-editor of Contents of Commercial Contracts: Terms Affecting Freedoms (Hart, 2020), and Contract Law and the Unexpected (Hart, forthcoming June 2026), co-author of Calnan on Taking Security (LexisNexis, 5th edition, 2024), and contributes to Snell’s Equity.
Moderator: Lusina Ho, Harold Hsiao-Wo Lee Professor in Trust and Equity, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
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