Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BOOK REVIEW - BILLS OF EXCHANGE AND BANKERS’ DOCUMENTARY CREDITS
BILLS OF EXCHANGE AND BANKERS’ DOCUMENTARY CREDITS by William Hedley, M.A., LL.B., European Counsel to Orion International Inc. Lloyd’s of London Press, London (1986, xxx and 252 pp., plus 54 pp. Appendices and 5 pp. Index). Hardback £52.
The author’s primary aim in writing this book is to present a book on the subject of bills of exchange which is “readable”. In that object he has, without a shadow of doubt, succeeded. In so doing, the author has presented a book which is a welcome relief from approaching this subject through, as one has been forced in the past, the medium of annotations to the Bills of Exchange Act 1882.
The author wishes to direct his work to bankers and people in the commercial world. In doing so he treads with skill the fine line between presenting a “nutshell” version of the subject and a work which both sets out the subject-matter accurately and raises ambiguities in interpretation and application of the legislation. In presenting the latter aspect of the book, Hedley draws to effect on his long experience as a banker with bills and notes, as well as his self-confessed 30-year career as a teacher and examiner in the area.
As befits an introductory work, it begins with a short explanation of the commercial context in which bills of exchange and similar instruments are used. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of the book is in Chapter 2. There, the author points out what is often not obvious to those coming to the subject for the first time—that the bill of exchange, prom
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