OPERATING AND DEVELOPING INTERNATIONALLY
Law course taught at ISUGA International Business School (Quimper, France)
Academic year: 2025–2026 — Period: January-February 2026
Programme: Master’s degree in international business development (EQF Level 7 / Master’s level – Year 1)
Official title (FR): Mastère Manager du Développement d’Affaires à l’International spécialisation Marchés asiatiques (BAC+5 – RNCP niveau 7)
Level: Master’s degree – Year 1 (EQF Level 7)
Group: ISUGA M1 2025–26
Lecturer: Franck BEAUDOIN, Avocat
Duration of the course: 15 hours / 3 sessions
Updated on 15 February 2026
📌 Recommendations for exam preparation
Dear students,
Please pay particular attention to the most recent lessons added to the online course, as they are designed to support your preparation for the final examination.
I strongly recommend that you review the following modules and lessons:
🔹 Module “Overview of International Business Law”
(located at the beginning of the online course)
In particular:
- Operating and developing internationally: strategic overview
- Integrating legal analysis into international business operations
These lessons will help you consolidate your overall understanding of the subject and, most importantly, integrate legal analysis into strategic business decision-making.
🔹 Module “Final exam – Operating and developing internationally”
(the last module of the course)
In particular:
- Final exam – Preparing for the practical case
This lesson provides essential methodological guidance. It will help you structure your reasoning, prioritise legal issues, and articulate a clear, coherent and strategic analysis on the day of the exam.
You are encouraged to study these materials carefully as part of your revision strategy.
Best regards
FB
📋 Syllabus and Course Guidelines
🎯 Objectives
This course aims to equip students with the legal knowledge and practical skills needed to navigate the complexities of international business operations and development. By the end of the course, students will:
- Understand key legal frameworks
- Gain an in-depth understanding of the principles and structures governing international commercial contracts, including essential clauses and risk mitigation strategies.
- Develop practical legal skills
- Learn to identify and address legal issues related to international activities, such as regulatory compliance, dispute resolution, and intellectual property management.
- Enhance strategic decision-making
- Acquire the ability to evaluate legal considerations in global operations, helping businesses optimise strategies for international expansion and operations.
- Apply legal knowledge to business planning
- Develop the expertise to draft and integrate a comprehensive legal section into an international business plan, ensuring alignment with legal requirements and business objectives.
- Improve risk management capabilities
- Understand how to proactively manage legal risks in international markets, enhancing business stability and growth potential.
🧭 Course rationale and structure
This course, taught in English, addresses the international dimension of business law. It focuses on private international law, European Union law, and French law. It covers a wide range of legal issues through a multidisciplinary approach, including contract law, commercial law, distribution law, company law, intellectual property law, and the law applicable to the processing of personal data. It presents the rules governing companies’ international activities and identifies the legal issues to be considered in order to structure and secure these activities.
From a practical perspective, the course examines the legal questions arising in the context of companies’ international operations, such as research and development, engineering, design, procurement, supplier relationship management, marketing and communication, sales, distribution, import, export, and international business development.
The course will be valuable to anyone involved in the international activities of a company.
This course builds on the legal foundations acquired at Bachelor level and focuses on the operational use of international business law. It is designed to help students understand how legal rules apply in practice and how they can be used to secure and optimise international business operations.
The course forms the second stage of a coherent learning path in international business law. Following an introductory Bachelor-level course focused on the identification of legal issues (Legal guide to doing business internationally), this course emphasises the management of legal risks in international operations and the operational use of international business law (Operating internationally). It also prepares students for more advanced courses taught at Master 2 level, which address international business development strategies and the integration of legal considerations into strategic decision-making (Strategies for international business development).
The focus on operating and developing internationally reflects the overall structure of the programme. While international business development strategies are addressed in greater depth in the fifth year, students are expected, from the fourth year onwards, to work on the operational and legal dimensions of international development. In the final year of the programme, students will be required to prepare a business plan focusing on international development, which builds in part on the issues and methodologies introduced during this course.
📚 Course outline
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS LAW
OPERATING AND DEVELOPING INTERNATIONALLY
🗓️ In-class sessions schedule
| SESSION | THEMES | DURATION | DATE |
|---|---|---|---|
| SESSION 1 | Securing and optimising international commercial contracts. | 5 hours | 8 January 2026 |
| SESSION 2 | Mastering legal considerations in international activities and operations. | 5 hours | 22 January 2026 |
| SESSION 3 | Drafting the legal section of an international business plan. | 5 hours | 5 February 2026 |
| FINAL EXAM | 1,5 hour | 17 February 2026 |
💻 Online lessons to be completed
The following table indicates the minimum online lessons to be completed. Students are encouraged to explore additional online lessons for a deeper understanding.
When only the module title is indicated, all lessons within that module are to be completed.
| MODULES / lessons | Indicative study time |
|---|---|
| Overview of international business law | 30 minutes |
| Advanced insights into international contract law | 1h30 |
| Contractual liability in international business | 2h30 |
| International payment and financing instruments | 4h |
| Thinking internationally: legal issues in business operations | 1h |
| Operating internationally | 2h |
| Developing internationally | 1h30 |
| Final exam | 30 minutes |
🧩 Teaching method
The course is delivered face-to-face and is based on active learning.
During class sessions, students have access to an online platform developed by the lecturer (i-law.co), which includes online lessons and exercises.
Each theme is presented orally by the lecturer, supported by slides designed to simplify and illustrate legal concepts (“legal design”). During these presentations, students are expected to participate actively and to ask questions. Interactive activities (quizzes, polls, role plays, etc.) are organised to encourage engagement.
To consolidate their knowledge, students are then invited to read the corresponding lessons on the i-law.co platform and to complete individual online exercises, which include both theoretical questions and practical cases. Collective case studies are subsequently organised in order to apply the knowledge acquired.
📑 Personal work required for students
Prerequisites: students are expected to have acquired the basic legal foundations of international business law, as typically covered in a Bachelor-level course such as Legal guide to doing business internationally.
During the sessions, students are expected to participate actively in class discussions.
Each student must complete all online lessons individually.
Personal work and restricted use of artificial intelligence (AI) – All questionnaires, assignments and assessments must be completed individually, without the use of AI-generated content.
The use of digital tools (including AI) is permitted only:
- for personal or documentary research outside the context of an assessment, or
- where an activity explicitly authorises such tools for pedagogical purposes (e.g. critical analysis of AI-generated text).
📊 Assessment
Assessment is based on four components, designed to combine continuous learning, written examinations and active participation. The weighting of each component is set out below.
| COMPONENT | DESCRIPTION | WEIGHTING | COEFFICIENT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formative assessment (online) | Continuous assessment via the i-law.co platform: students read the corresponding online lessons and complete online exercises individually. Exercises may be retaken before the final exam. | 20% | 2 |
| Continuous written tests | In-class written exams held after selected modules. No assistance, electronic devices or notes are allowed. | 30% | 3 |
| Final written exam | Comprehensive in-class written exam at the end of the course, covering the main themes of the syllabus. | 30% | 3 |
| Oral participation | Active oral contributions during sessions, assessed on quality, frequency, preparation, interaction and professionalism. | 20% | 2 |
Formative assessment (online)
Continuous assessment during sessions via the online platform: before or after each oral presentation, students read the corresponding online lessons and then complete the online exercises.
Exercises must be completed individually without external assistance. Students may consult the online lesson or their notes; the use of any other tool, in particular a generative artificial intelligence, is prohibited.
For each online exercise, students automatically receive their grade and the correction. Exercises may be retaken before the final exam.
Students must have an electronic device enabling them to access the website in optimal conditions (ideally a computer or a tablet).
The grade is calculated as the arithmetic mean of all online exercises. This grade carries a weighting of 20%.
Summative assessment (in class)
Continuous written tests: after selected modules, students sit short written exams on paper.
The grade is calculated as the arithmetic mean of all tests. This grade carries a weighting of 30%.
Final written exam: at the end of the course, students sit a comprehensive in-class written exam covering the main themes of the syllabus.
The final exam carries a weighting of 30%.
Common rules for written exams: no assistance is permitted. Electronic devices are forbidden. Notes or other sources may not be consulted. The exam paper is provided by the lecturer. Students must bring a pen.
Oral participation
Active oral participation is assessed throughout the sessions. Students are expected to contribute regularly and meaningfully, by asking questions, commenting on cases, engaging in discussions, and interacting constructively with peers. Assessment takes into account the quality, frequency and relevance of contributions, as well as preparation, interaction and professionalism (punctuality, respect of instructions).
This grade carries a weighting of 20%.
The following table provides the grade descriptors for oral participation.
| GRADE RANGE | LEVEL | CRITERIA |
|---|---|---|
| 18-20 | Outstanding | Very frequent, highly relevant, well-prepared, excellent interaction, exemplary professionalism. |
| 15-17 | Strong | Frequent, relevant, solid preparation, active and respectful participation. |
| 12-14 | Satisfactory | Occasional contributions, generally prepared, sometimes passive. |
| 8-11 | Limited | Rare contributions, weak preparation, minimal engagement. |
| 0-7 | Minimal/Absent | Almost no participation, lack of preparation, possible disruption. |
Pedagogical adjustments and assessment flexibility
The assessment framework described above defines the general structure of evaluation for this course. Final grades are determined on the basis of the results obtained in each assessment component, combined with a global pedagogical assessment of the student’s work throughout the course.
In practice, final grades may include a limited manual pedagogical adjustment, remaining very close to the objectively calculated results, in order to reflect the student’s overall engagement, consistency, progression and seriousness of work during the course.
In this context, particular attention will be paid to the percentage of online lessons completed on the i-law.co platform, which will be taken into account when assessing and, where appropriate, adjusting the grade for continuous online assessment.
Depending on pedagogical constraints, group dynamics or organisational considerations, certain assessment components may be adapted or suppressed. In particular, oral participation may not be graded for some groups. In such cases, the overall grade may be calculated on the basis of the following distribution:
– Formative assessment (online): 25%
– Continuous written tests: 37.5%
– Final written exam: 37.5%
More generally, the lecturer retains the possibility to adapt the assessment modalities where justified by pedagogical considerations, while preserving the coherence, fairness and learning objectives of the course.
🚀 GET STARTED!
📨 1 – Register
Please provide an email address that clearly identifies you (first name and last name).
👥 2 – Join your group
👉 https://i-law.co/join-group/?group-code=tkb3HnT1YuSg
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