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Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly

BOOK REVIEW - DEFENCES IN UNJUST ENRICHMENT

Mat Campbell

DEFENCES IN UNJUST ENRICHMENT. Edited by Andrew Dyson, James Goudkamp and Frederick Wilmot-Smith. Hart, Oxford (2016) xxxi and 316 pp, plus 1 p Index of Authors and 10 pp Index. ISBN 9781849467254. Hardback £75.
This is the second volume in the series Hart Studies in Private Law: Essays on Defences: 13 chapters on replies to claims in unjust enrichment by an all-star cast from academia, the judiciary and the bar. The book’s ambitions can be distilled from a foreword by the Chief Justice of Canada: to contribute to a better understanding of defences in private law generally; to help clarify the structure of unjust enrichment claims; to address specific issues on defences in unjust enrichment; and to be relevant to academic, judge and practitioner alike. This brief review highlights some of the ways in which these objectives are comfortably achieved.
Let us start with the book’s first and second aims, to develop our understanding of defences in both private law and unjust enrichment. In this regard, the editors’ introductory chapter stands out. It is, of course, a helpful guide to the other contributions in the book. But, far more than an orientation exercise, it raises interesting questions germane both to answers to unjust enrichment claims and answers to claims in general. One example is offered here. It seems that there is a distinction between arguments that negate the claimant’s cause of action (denials of liability) and those that concede a good cause of action but otherwise reject the imposition of liability, whether partially or in full (defences

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