Chalmers and Guest on Bills of Exchange and Cheques

Chalmers and 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 another
• 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, including Teva Canada Ltd. v. TD Canada Trust
• Considers the position in Philipp v Barclays Bank UK as regards cheques

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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