Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BOOK REVIEW - PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS IN COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS
By Professor R. M. Goode, O.B.E., LL.D., Solicitor, Crowther Professor of Credit and Commercial Law in the University of London and Director of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary College, London.
Published by Sweet & Maxwell Ltd., London (1983, xxiii and 145 pp., plus 5 pp. Index).
Paperback £11.
It is said of Lord Goddard, the former Lord Chief Justice, that when he was a fledgling barrister he received his first “break” one Saturday morning in Chambers when, having idly read an interesting decision on banking law which discussed the Clearing House system, a set of papers arrived demanding knowledge of just that matter, and the combination of being the only barrister present and of being able to demonstrate an intimate knowledge of banking practice won young Rayner Goddard the chance to show what he could do. If the story is true, then every young barrister should read this book. Even if the story is quite apocryphal, he or she should still read it. For this book contains not only the best short account of the Clearing House system (and indeed of much banking practice and procedure) of which this reviewer is aware, but also offers, in concise form, answers to all those wicked peripheral problems that are apt to rise up in the face of the young practitioner when he is otherwise Doing Splendidly Well with his client. For example, how many who read this could say, without looking it up, what would be the last punctum temporis at which a contractual obligation could be satisfied if the contract stated that performance was to take place “within seven days after 1st January”? Midnight maybe, but on 7th, 8th or 9th January? And, if you could not say it without looking it up, where would you look ?
In fact, this book covers five wide-ranging areas of payment obligations: (i) the concepts of money, payment and obligation to pay; (ii) the right to payment and the defences to a payment claim; (iii) stipulations as to time, and interest; (iv) the legal implications of inter-bank transfers; and (v) foreign money obligations. Each section represents in written form one of Professor Goode’s five special lectures given in
1983 at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary College, London. But, although originally delivered as lectures, and although this fact is still occasionally apparent from the present form of the book, the text has been so revised and supported by copious references to authorities and academic articles as to make it a valuable short reference work for busy practitioners.
This is not to say that the book is completely without what this reviewer would regard as blemishes. For example, on pages 41 and 42, Professor Goode discusses the decision of the House of Lords in White and Carter (Councils) Ltd. v. McGregor [1962] A.C. 413. It is very fashionable today to deride the decision of the majority in that case as potentially economically wasteful. But this reviewer is of opinion that that decision was then, and remains today, absolutely right. Professor Goode, however, says:
327