Laura McGregor has produced the first systematic and comprehensive treatise on the Scots law of agency, and therefore an important contribution to the modern corpus on Scots commercial law. The excellence and thoroughness of the author’s researches into the history, theory and practice of Scots law is combined with thorough comparative analysis of civil law, common law and other “mixed” systems, of a quality which humbles those of us south of the border. McGregor deals carefully with the Scots law reception of the Roman law contract of mandate and explicitly adopts a “mixed system” approach. Whilst she regularly engages with English law, she does not consider that uniformity across the UK is the only objective (at 7). For example, she is scathing of the “clumsy” fiction adopted in English case law to explain breach of warranty of authority as based on collateral contract (at 7–8) and, whilst accepting the Scottish adoption of fiduciary obligation, is critical of transplants based on knowing receipt and constructive trust.

In Part I McGregor addresses the nature of agency and explains Paul Laband’s principle of abstraction (a Continental debate which passed the English by), which perhaps too sharply differentiated between the agreement between principal and agent and the concept of authority, noting that: “Authority is emphasised by the English writers at the expense of any underlying agreement” (at 15–16). After comparative reflection, the view that agency is almost invariably contractual in Scots law (and not based on a unilateral grant by the principal) is adopted. Authority depends on the express or implied terms of the contract. The English view that agency is consensual, and not necessarily contractual, is rejected, together with the importation of delictual principles, because to “mimic English law in this respect risks shaping Scots law around a non-existent requirement of consideration” (at 24).