FE-1 Company Law study plan

Map the Companies Act structure: incorporation, corporate personality, constitution and capacity, then rank the five highest-weight topics by past-paper frequency.

Explain separate legal personality and the veil-piercing exceptions in your own words, citing the principle behind each exception rather than case names alone.

Distinguish private, public, and listed companies on formation, minimum members, capital, and transferability, and state one exam trap for each.

Draft a one-page decision tree for choosing between company, partnership, and LLP for a given fact pattern.

Sequence the incorporation steps from name reservation through certificate of incorporation, and list the documents filed at each stage.

Compare the memorandum and articles, and state which provisions a company cannot alter retroactively without member consent.

Apply the ultra vires and constructive notice rules to two short fact patterns and predict the outcome for a third party.

Explain pre-incorporation contracts and ratify or reject each clause in a sample contract.

Classify shares by rights: ordinary, preference, deferred, and redeemable, and state the voting and dividend consequences of each.

Compute the effect of a rights issue and a bonus issue on share capital and per-share value using two worked examples.

Explain the rules on allotment authority, pre-emption rights, and the consequences of an irregular allotment.

Distinguish reduction of capital, redemption, and buyback by procedure and creditor protection.

State the statutory duties of directors and match each duty to a breach scenario.

Analyse conflict-of-interest and corporate-opportunity problems, and state when member approval cures the breach.

Explain the business judgment standard and identify facts that shift review from deference to scrutiny.

Outline disqualification grounds and the consequences for the director and the company.

Compare the powers of the board with member reserved matters, and state who decides in a deadlock.

Explain appointment, removal, and vacation of office of directors, including notice and representation rights.

Describe the derivative action and the unfair prejudice remedy, and choose the correct remedy for three fact patterns.

Summarise the rules on dividends: distributable profits, unlawful distributions, and director liability.

Distinguish members' rights from debenture holders' rights, and rank claims in a winding-up waterfall.

Explain the registration and priority rules for charges, and resolve a priority contest between two charges.

Classify the grounds for winding-up as voluntary or compulsory, and state the tests for insolvency.

Describe the duties and liabilities of liquidators and the effect of dissolution on outstanding claims.

Complete a 60-question timed mixed set and tag every wrong answer by topic and error type.

Re-derive the three topics with the lowest accuracy from memory before checking notes.

Draft model answer skeletons for the five most common essay prompts, each with issue, rule, application, and conclusion headings.

Reduce your topic map to a single page of high-yield rules and exceptions.

Simulate two full-length papers under time pressure and record time spent per question.

Review only the error log and one-page high-yield sheet, not new material.

Recite the top ten exception rules aloud without notes and flag any you cannot state cleanly.

Finalise a 15-minute pre-exam checklist covering timing, question order, and common traps.