Chalmers and Guest on Bills of Exchange and Cheques

Chalmers & Guest provides the definitive guide to the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 and the Cheques Act 1957, and offers legal practitioners comprehensive guidance to the law and practice relating to bills of exchange, cheques and promissory notes.

• Offers comprehensive guidance on the law and practice relating to bills of exchange, cheques and promissory notes
• Provides a section by section commentary to the primary legislation, the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 and the Cheques Act 1957
• Explains in detail what provisions the legislation contains, and provides opinion and guidance on how to comply
• Presents a selection of precedents to assist the reader in communications as well as court proceedings
• Illustrates common situations where problems may arise, and works through the legal consequence
• Covers legal capacity for entering into a payment contract
• Addresses consideration, and how the rules governing it diverge from contract law
• Considers how bills may be transferred from one person to anther
• Sets out the general duties of the holder, including the necessary steps to fix the maturity of the instrument
• Identifies the liabilities of the parties
• Looks at discharge of a bill, including circumstances where payment is insufficient to discharge the bill
• Details the law governing lost, destroyed or split bills as well as crossed cheques
• Examines the applicable law where parties are based in different jurisdictions, and conflict of laws
• Reflects the changes introduced by Small Business, enterprise and Employment Act 2015 on bills of exchange and cheques: in particular the changes concerning electronic payment of bills

Major changes detailed in the new 19th edition include:

• The Electronic Trade Documentation Act 2023, which creates a new (and entirely separate) mechanism for creating and transferring electronic bills of exchange and which deems electronic bills of exchange which circulate on an electronic trade platform to be equivalent to paper bills
• The cessation of paper cheque clearing and the adoption of the Image Clearing System (ICS) by Pay.UK, which saw all cheques being cleared as images
• Important new cases, includingTeva Canada Ltd. v. TD Canada Trust
• Considers the position in Philipp v Barclays Bank UK as regards cheques

Bills of Exchange Act 1882
PART I: PRELIMINARY
PART II: BILLS OF EXCHANGE
Form and Interpretation
Capacity and Authority of Parties
The Consideration for a Bill
Negotiation of Bills
General Duties of the Holder
Liabilities of Parties
Discharge of Bill
Acceptance and Payment for Honour
Lost Instruments
Bill in a Set
Conflict of Laws
PART III: CHEQUES ON A BANKER
Crossed Cheques
PART IV: PROMISSORY NOTES
PART 4A: PRESENTMENT OF CHEQUES AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS BY ELECTRONIC MEANS
PART V: SUPPLEMENTARY
Schedules to the Act
CHEQUES ACT 1957
APPENDICES