This is a review of the first number of a journal which has recently appeared in the area of banking and finance. There are a great number of such journals now available, and many of them contain pieces barely comparable in analytic content, perceptiveness about policy and quality of prose to the financial columns of the daily newspapers. Legal journals on finance and banking are often not an exception to this. The new Banking and Finance Law Review is, on the whole, a cut above the general run of journals on banking and finance. It combines fairly lengthy and scholarly articles on serious legal problems in banking and financial transactions, with notes on recent developments, case notes and book reviews. It concentrates on domestic banking matters and, as befits its origin in a meeting of the Law Society of Upper Canada of October 1985, has a definitely professional tone and orientation. The contributors to the first number are all lawyers in practice, and the contributions all marry legal clarification with practical application.

In his piece entitled “The Relationship Between Banker and Customer; Fiduciary Duties and Confidentiality”, John D. Marshall presents an eminently readable, well researched and clear account of the state of Canadian case law in the under-researched area of fiduciary relations between the banker and customer, most attention having hitherto concentrated on the contractual aspects of this relationship. This account is spiced with practical suggestions for the practitioner advising on the fiduciary aspects of banking transactions.

The contribution of R. Gordon Marantz, Q.C., is even more directed to assisting the legal practitioner with “Tactics for Survival: What to do When the Borrower is in Trouble”. This article contains a check list of signs of financial difficulty that the borrower may display and for which the legal practitioner should be alert. Along with this is an account of the pro