It is good that the Cambridge Law Faculty has established a Centre for European Legal Studies. In the first place because it is plain that practising lawyers in the future will need to be increasingly aware of European Community Law—whether they are taught it as a separate subject or as a part of specialist areas of the law. In the second place because if, as I also think, Britain should be not only at the heart but also at the head of Europe, if it is in it at all, there are few better ways of preparing our future political and administrative leaders than by a grounding in Community law.

In the history of the modern company the shareholder has held a privileged position, for although the company's separate identity is the fundamental tenet of company law the shareholder's place as proprietor has only recently been questioned. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that for nearly a century the unanimous assent of shareholders has held the status of an overriding authority, able to cure procedural defects, overcome statutory requirements and validate almost any act within the capacity of the company. In its most recent application in Brick and Pipe Industries Ltd. v. Occidental Life Nominees Pty. Ltd., where the consent of shareholders was held to bind the company to a guarantee, we have a striking example of the authority accorded to the wishes of shareholders.

Governmental liability used to be on the retreat, especially but not only in the field of negligence liability. In Bourgoin S.A. v. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the majority of the Court of Appeal flatly stated that not every infringement of Community law was a tort. Moreover, in the recent decision in Murphy v. Brentwood District Council the House of Lords, departing from Anns v. Merton London Borough Council, dramatically curtailed any hope—or fear, it depends on the point of view—of development of governmental liability in the field of economic loss.