Business Law, 12th Edition, Andy Gibson

12th Australian Edition

Business Law is a practical, engaging text that will satisfy the requirements of most business or commercial law subjects throughout Australia.

This twelfth edition continues to provide students of commercial or business law with an accessible and student-friendly but authoritative and comprehensive textbook. It provides extensive coverage of business law topics and considers the legal environment in which businesses must operate. Care has been taken to ensure that the text represents current law in all states and territories.

"[Business Law] will provide the reader with an understanding of most areas of the law that impact on business, help identify a problem (or potential problem) that involves potential for legal intervention, and to know when to seek legal help."
- Andy Gibson, Author

View the table of contents

Part 1. The legal framework
Chapter 1. Legal foundations
Chapter 2. How the legal system works

Part 2. Law of contracts
Chapter 3. Creating a contract
Chapter 4. Validity
Chapter 5. Terms of the contract
Chapter 6. Rights and liabilities of the parties, discharge and remedies

Part 3. Civil Liability
Chapter 7. Civil Liability: the law of torts and negligence
Chapter 8. Applications of the torts of negligence and defamation to business

Part 4. Consumer Law
Chapter 9. The Australian Consumer Law: Misleading or deceptive conduct, false or misleading representations and unfair practices
Chapter 10. Other consumer protections under the Australian Consumer Law

Part 5. Business organisation and the law
Chapter 11. Agency
Chapter 12. Sole traders and partnerships
Chapter 13. Introduction to companies and incorporated associations
Chapter 14. Choosing a business entity
Chapter 15. Insurance
Chapter 16. Ethics and business practice
Chapter 17. Insolvency and debt recovery
Chapter 18. The work environment and employment relationship
Chapter 19. Ethics and regulations in marketing and advertising

Additional online only PDF chapters

Part 6. Additional topics
Chapter 20. Other Business-Related Torts
Chapter 21. Sale of Goods – Business to Business
Chapter 22. Property and Mortgages
Chapter 23. Intellectual Property
Chapter 24. Criminal Law in a Business Context
Chapter 25. Competition Law
Chapter 26. Electronic Commerce
Chapter 27. Negotiable Instruments
Chapter 28. Consumer Credit and Privacy

Download the detailed table of contents

Educator resources

Learning aids supplemental to the text:

Solutions Manual
Provides detailed answers to the in-chapter and end-of-chapter questions in the book, up to Ch19.

Test Bank
A wide variety of question types for homework and quizzing, arranged by learning objective and tagged by AACSB standards.

PowerPoint lecture slides
Include key figures and tables, and summaries of key concepts and examples from the text, up to Ch19.

IRAC questions
Guidance and questions to give students for answering legal questions in an IRAC format.

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To support emerging topic focus areas, some online PDF chapters from the 11th edition have been refreshed and brought into the main text: Insurance (Ch15), Ethics and Business Practice (Ch16), Insolvency and Debt (Ch17), Work Environment and Employment Relationship (Ch18), Ethics and Regulations in Marketing & Advertising (Ch19).
Changes to legislation and cases since the last edition have been updated in the text. In particular, topic coverage of the Australian Consumer Law has been increased in Chapters 9 and 10.
Learners can now utilise radio button links to easily find and access the full key cases referenced in the chapter, sourced from High Court of Australia.
'Business Risk Management Alert' and 'Business Tip' have been streamlined into Business Tip, a feature that helps students link theory to practice.
As a resource for educators, the Tutorial Questions have been moved into the Solutions Manual.

This edition has retained the distinctive, easy-to-use layout of the previous 11 editions. The learning aids, such as In Brief, Business Tips and boxed Cases, continue to feature strongly throughout the text. Additionally, enhanced interactivity and student self-review opportunities are available in the Pearson eTextbook format.

Business Tips

Identify areas of the law that people in business need to be alert to or aware of.

In Brief

These boxes summarise key points relevant to the particular area of law under discussion.

Case Studies

Many examples are integrated into the text. Cases are broken into parts to make them user-friendly and include brief Comments and Reflections, encouraging students to apply critical thinking.

Interactivity eg: drag and drops, show/hides, multiple-choice quizzes

In the Pearson eTextbook, readers can actively engage and consolidate learning whilst also being provided with automatic feedback to reflect on areas for improvement.

Review and Tutorial Questions

In-chapter Review questions provide an opportunity for students to test their understanding of key concepts and issues as they arise in a chapter. Tutorial questions – provided in the Solutions Manual – are a resource for lecturers to help facilitate student discussion and debate.

Andy Gibson

Andy Gibson has worked in private legal practice and lectured in business law now for 40 years, first at the (then) Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, then at Griffith University and finally at Southern Cross University where he is now an adjunct Associate Professor there as well as at the Universal Business School Sydney.

Andy has co-authored a number of business law texts with Doug Fraser, as well as being sole author of a Sports Law text. He has jointly authored a text on the law of torts and was the founding editor of a sports law loose-leaf publication. Andy was Financial Director of the Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association (ANZSLA) and is now a life member. He developed a case index on sports law cases in Australia for the ANZSLA, as well as being an editor and reviewer for the ANZSLA peer-reviewed Sports Lay Journal. He also writes occasional articles on various sports law issues that clubs and associations in sport face today for the Sport Australia publication, Play by the Rules, as well as conducting seminars for sporting bodies on legal issues such as governance and disputes.

Pearson eTextbook

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With a Pearson eTextbook, the same high-quality content is enhanced with features like note-taking, text highlighting, embedded videos and animations, and powerful search to help students streamline their learning and study.