Bugden’s Freight Forwarding and Goods in Transit was first published in 1999. The second edition was co-written with Dr Simone Lamont-Black and appeared in 2010. The new (3rd) edition, which was published at the end of 2013, inherits the particular emphasis on multimodal transport of goods and the law of agency of the transactions. The book is written in a very compact and pithy style: statements of law are neatly addressed in the text with a great deal of case law cited or commented on in the footnotes.

The book has 26 chapters, which are divided into six parts. Part One, Agency, starts with an introduction of the status of agency basically in the context of commercial law. The first chapter looks at the legal relationships between principals and agents, and is then followed by a second chapter discussing those between agents and third parties. Part Two, Interests in Goods, first analyses the concepts of ownership, possession and risk; and then the nature of bailment, which is treated as another form of interests in goods. Part Three, Carriage Documents, introduces the types of document to be issued in contracts for the carriage of goods by various means of transport and further analyses the receipt function of these documents from the perspective of estoppel. Part Four, The Causes of Action, includes matters of contract, misrepresentation, bailment, tort, restitution, assignment and damages. Part Five, Liability Regimes, begins with the common law classification of carriers and forwarding agents, and is followed by a thorough introduction of the international transport Conventions. The liability regimes for carriers under these Conventions are then considered in detail. Part Six, Miscellaneous Issues, covers topics such as deviation and exemption, payment and interest, limitation of liability, liens, time bar, liabilities of the merchant, redirection and delivery, election, waiver and discharge, and unenforceable rights. The book ends with a number of appendices containing a comprehensive collection of standard carriage documents, international carriage Conventions and domestic statutes.

The new edition has successfully taken the opportunity to rearrange the structure of the book in order to present the work in a more logical and coherent way, with the exception of the part Miscellaneous Issues. The structure would be, perhaps, more coherent if some of the miscellaneous issues were addressed under one of the previous five parts. For instance, limitation of liability (Chapter 20, in Part Six) and liabilities of the merchant (Chapter 23, in Part Six) seem to be strongly related to Part Five, Liability Regimes; also, one would expect some discussion of liens (Chapter 21, in Part Six) or election, waiver and discharge (Chapter 25, in Part Six) before coming to the issue of damages under the topic of Part Four, The Causes of Action.

The coverage of the various areas of the law is extensive. Fragments of the specific application in carriage cases are contained throughout the book. Carriage lawyers would find Part Five, Liability Regimes, particularly helpful, albeit inexhaustive. There is a considerable number of venerable and scholarly works setting out the law on carriage of goods by road and air, and particularly carriage of goods by sea, in greater detail than this book is able to do. However, it would be inappropriate to read and review the book alongside those treatises on the law of carriage, since this book covers various aspects of shipping, transport, contract, agency, bailment, property, general commercial law and international trade. The book poignantly demonstrates a coherent and natural connection between