Corporate and Business Law (LW) is the first Applied Skills paper, and it’s the odd one out: no calculations, no numbers to balance, just legal principles applied to scenarios.
It’s the only fully non-numerical paper in the ACCA qualification, which makes it feel different to sit despite it being 100% Objective test (OT) questions.
By the way, LW comes in jurisdiction-specific variants:
- most commonly LW-ENG (English law) and LW-GLO (general international principles), plus
- country variants like LW-SCT, LW-IRL and LW-SGP.
The ACCA LW exam tips below are built from LW-ENG examiner’s reports specifically, since that’s the most widely sat variant. Do check you’re preparing for the right one before relying on the syllabus-specific content further down.
Quick summary
- LW-ENG is a 2-hour, on-demand exam: 45 objective test (OT) questions in Section A (70 marks) and 5 multi-task questions (MTQs) in Section B (30 marks)
- LW’s pass rate has climbed steadily to around 82% as of June 2026, the highest of any Applied Skills paper, reflecting that it rewards careful reading over calculation speed
- The technique here is almost entirely about precision reading: a single word or figure in a question is often the whole point, and Section A questions are deliberately randomised so you can’t predict what’s being tested from the order they appear in
We have collected insights from past ACCA candidates who passed and summarised ACCA’s own LW examiner’s reports (Sep 2022-Aug 2025) to hone into what actually separates a pass from a fail on this paper. Check out our general ACCA exam tips that apply across every ACCA paper for more prep tips as well.
Other ACCA exam tips by paper: Business and Technology (BT) | Management Accounting (MA) | Financial Accounting (FA) | Performance Management (PM) | Taxation (TX) | Financial Reporting (FR) | Audit and Assurance (AA) | Financial Management (FM) | Strategic Business Leader (SBL) | Strategic Business Reporting (SBR) | Advanced Financial Management (AFM) | Advanced Performance Management (APM) | Advanced Taxation (ATX) | Advanced Audit and Assurance (AAA)
What’s the format of the ACCA LW exam?
Knowing exactly what you’re up against changes how you prepare, so here’s a quick summary of the LW-ENG exam format. Full detail is also available directly on ACCA’s own LW exam support page.
| Section | Question type | Marks | Time budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section A | 45 objective test (OT) questions: 20 worth 1 mark, 25 worth 2 marks | 70 | ~84 minutes, ~1.9 minutes per question |
| Section B | 5 multi-task questions (MTQs), 6 marks each | 30 | ~36 minutes, ~7.2 minutes per MTQ |
LW-ENG runs for 2 hours and is available on-demand. The pass mark is a fixed 50%.
Objective test (OT) questions have one demonstrably correct answer marked automatically by computer, with no free-text writing anywhere.
- In Section A, 1-mark questions offer 3 possible answers, and 2-mark questions offer 4. So, the odds of a lucky guess actually shift with the mark value.
- Section B’s MTQs are analysis and application questions built around a legal scenario, not constructed response essays.
What are the most effective ACCA LW exam tips?
| ACCA LW Tips | Why |
|---|---|
| Read every statement word by word, especially numbers and qualifiers | A single figure (25% not 50%, £750 not £700) or word (“public” vs “plc”) is often the entire point of the question, and skimming past it produces a confident wrong answer. |
| Never assume answer options split evenly | Examiners deliberately set traps where both statements in a pair are false, or where the two smallest-sounding options are actually correct, precisely because candidates expect a neat symmetry that isn’t there. |
| Don’t dismiss the broad or general-sounding option as a distractor | Specific-looking options are sometimes wrong because they don’t apply universally, while the general option holds true across all cases. |
| Study the whole syllabus rather than avoiding traditionally difficult topics | Section A alone has 45 questions covering the full syllabus at random, and any gap resurfaces directly in Section B, where the scenario format makes it much harder to hide. |
| In Section B scenarios, isolate the single determinant fact before answering | Scenarios include several plausible-looking triggers, but usually only one fact (who initiated an action, whether debts can be paid) actually decides the correct legal classification. |
What do examiners flag for each part of the ACCA LW syllabus?
| ACCA LW Topic | Topic-specific Tips |
|---|---|
| Sources of law and retained EU law | Know precisely who can revoke retained or assimilated EU law (government ministers, via delegated legislation) and which specific categories the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 repeals, rather than assuming Parliament or the courts hold that power. |
| Human rights law | Learn exactly what human rights legislation changes in the legislative process, such as the requirement for a statement of compatibility on new bills, rather than assuming courts or the Supreme Court can strike down or amend legislation on human rights grounds. |
| Statutory interpretation | Match each rule (literal, golden, mischief, purposive) to its purpose precisely, particularly the golden rule’s role in avoiding an absurd or unjust outcome that a literal reading would otherwise produce. |
| Company formation and public companies | – Distinguish “public company” from “plc” carefully in question stems. – Confirm the exact paid-up share capital requirement (25%) rather than a rounder, more intuitive figure. |
| Share classes and variation of class rights | – Remember that public companies can issue multiple classes of ordinary share, including non-voting ones. – Procedures that look like they favour or disadvantage a class (a subdivision, a new preference class) do not automatically count as a variation of class rights unless case law confirms it. |
| Directors and their duties | – Separate de jure directors (expressly appointed) from shadow directors (undisclosed but carrying the same duties as any other director). – Check the exact minimum director count required for the company type in the question, since public companies need two even with only one member. |
| Reduction of share capital | Treat court confirmation and directors’ solvency statements as conditional requirements rather than universal ones, since which route applies depends on the type of company and the reduction method used. |
| Insolvency and liquidation | – Work out who is initiating the liquidation and whether the company can currently pay its debts before classifying it as members’ voluntary, creditors’ voluntary, or compulsory. – Know the liquidation is deemed to commence at the date the petition was first presented, not when the court order is made. |
| Lifting the veil of incorporation | Distinguish statutory grounds (such as wrongful trading) from common law grounds (such as facade or illegal purpose), since a question asking specifically for a statutory ground will only accept the legislated basis. |
| Employment status | Learn precisely which rights and obligations attach to employees versus independent contractors versus neither, such as preferential creditor status and secondary Class 1 National Insurance contributions, rather than assuming employment status is a simple binary. |
| Agency and apparent authority | Trace apparent authority back to something the principal did or failed to do, such as not telling a third party that an agent’s authority was revoked, since that is the actual legal test. An agent simply behaving the way agents normally would is not, on its own, enough to establish apparent authority. |
FAQs
LW’s pass rate has climbed steadily to around 82% as of June 2026, the highest of any Applied Skills paper. See our ACCA pass rates breakdown for how this compares across every paper.
Choose the variant relevant to where you work or plan to practise: LW-ENG for English law, LW-SCT for Scots law, LW-IRL for Irish law, etc.
LW-GLO covers general international legal principles and suits candidates not based in a specific jurisdiction. Check with your employer or Approved Learning Partner if you’re unsure which applies to you.
Yes. From the 2027 redesign, LW becomes K3 Business Law and moves down from the Applied Skills (Expertise) level to the Knowledge level.
If you haven’t completed LW before transition, you’ll need to sit K3 before or alongside your Expertise-level exams rather than as part of Applied Skills. Both the ENG and GLO variants remain available on-demand right up to the transition.
LW-ENG has 50 questions in total: 45 objective test questions in Section A worth 70 marks, and 5 multi-task questions in Section B worth 30 marks. All questions are compulsory.
No. There’s no penalty for an incorrect answer, so attempt every question rather than leaving any part blank.
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