Publisher: Bloomsbury Professional
Edition: 3rd Edition (May 2010)
ISBN: 978-1-84766-241-5
Price: £195.00
From a practical perspective, a banker’s right to set-off debts is extremely important in both retail and wholesale banking. Without it, customers may retain large balances on some accounts and large liabilities on others. Sheelagh McCracken’s The Banker’s Remedy of Set-Off, now in its third edition, aims to provide an invaluable analysis of the law of set-off, its origins and its practical application. It largely achieves this aim.
Written by an experienced academic, The Banker’s Remedy of Set-Off has been around for some time. It has, however, been seventeen years since the second edition was published in 1993. It is split in to five parts: the relevance of set-off under the banking contract; the concept of set-off; the nature of set-off; the scope of set-off as a remedy; and the application of set-off as a remedy. Each part (except for the first and last) is then split into a number of chapters. This is very much a cradle to the grave approach and gives readers and excellent insight into the law and its development.
As McCracken candidly admits, the origins of the text are in her doctoral thesis undertaken at the University of Sydney.It therefore means that The Banker’s Remedy of Set-Off is fantastically detailed and meticulously tackles the difficult issues of principle. It is therefore ideal for academics or those wanting an in-depth analysis of this important area of law. Practitioners who want a quick answer may, however, find the text somewhat frustrating: it often takes longer than one expects to really hone in to the answer to a specific question.
The Banker’s Right of Set-Off does exactly what it says on the tin: it provides a thorough and comprehensive analysis of this important area of law. At times it does, however, get somewhat bogged down in theoretical principles meaning practitioners may find it not as helpful as one would expect. It can also be, at times, somewhat wordy meaning the impact of a point can sometimes be lost. These are, however, relatively minor issues on a thorough and important analysis of the banker’s right to set-off debts.
Reviewed on 20 March 2011