Crawford and Falconbridge is bound to become a standard reference work for commercial lawyers in the common law world. This, the eighth edition, of Falconbridge’s Banking and Bills of Exchange, is virtually a new book (in two volumes). One can but admire the industry and perseverance of Bradley Crawford, and of those who assisted him, in producing this massive work.

The book falls basically into four parts. The first is on the Canadian Bank Act (pp. 1–736). It will be the least useful part for lawyers outside Canada. In other jurisdictions banks are incorporated under ordinary companies legislation, and a good number of the problems discussed in this part would fall within the ambit of company law books. However, this part sometimes raises more general policy issues, such as restricting foreign ownership of banks and controlling interlocking directorships. Moreover, tucked away in it, and not necessarily completely indexed, are matters of universal legal significance such as the definition of banks and banking, the authority of bank officials, requirements for bank capital, the legal character of branches, swaps, networking (whereby a bank gives access to the services of another bank) and constructive trusts.

The second part of the book deals with the banker/customer relationship, broadly defined. Within this is a discussion of matters as varied as the duty of confidentiality, fiduciary obligations, letters of credit, charge and debit cards, ATMs, payment, and cheque truncation. The book goes beyond the cursory accounts traditionally given of important matters such as certificates of deposit and flawed assets, although some of this discussion is in places where one would least expect it.

Thirdly, there is a section on clearing and settlement. While at first glance this does not appear to the especially relevant to persons outside Canada, since the system there has statutory form, more general points are raised about the nature of clearing, settlement, payment and cash.

The final part of the book is an extensive discussion of bills, cheques and notes (pp. 1167–1872). As well as what one would expect to be discussed, there are fine analyses of issues such as negotiability and foreign money obligations.