On 1 January 1994 the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993, which implemented the 1986 Council Directive on Commercial Agents, created a species of agent previously unknown to English law, the commercial agent. As Staughton, L.J. remarked in Page v. Combined Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd [1997] 3 All E.R. 656, 660, the legal regime imposed by the Regulations proceeds upon the assumption that commercial agents are “a down-trodden race, and need and should be afforded protection against their principals”. The legislation provides them with generous protection and, as has been observed on more than one occasion, to an English way of thinking in some respects commercial agents are now accorded rights more consistent with those of employees than those of the independent contractors which most of them actually are. The Regulations notably cover the rights and obligations of principal and commercial agent, the agent’s remuneration, and the conclusion and termination of agency contracts.

Susan Singleton, who is a solicitor with considerable experience of advising parties on commercial agency agreements and also the editor of Trading Law and Trading Law Reports, a series which has taken the decision systematically to report all decisions on the Regulations (see (1998) 17 Tr.L.R. 285), is particularly well-placed to write a book which will guide the practitioner through the fairly treacherous provisions of the 1993 Regulations. Indeed, she subjects the provisions to quite minute scrutiny. To take just the first chapter, Singleton here carefully examines the individual elements of the definition of “commercial agent” supplied in reg. 2(1), drawing readers’ attention both to what is clearly intended and to a number of possible obscurities and deficiencies in the drafting. Thus, we are invited to consider the tricky question, if and when agents who operate “virtual shopping malls”, setting up sales web sites on the Internet, are covered by the Regulations. Similarly, the author provokes us to reflect on the following potential paradox: if a principal in this country appoints an agent abroad, who even operates in another jurisdiction in which the Council Directive has been implemented, it is clear that the Regulations cannot apply (reg. 1(2)); but English law of course can. Should a dispute arise between the parties, a court in the agent’s jurisdiction would normally apply the law of contract selected by the parties, in this case English law. Given that the Regulations do not apply, one might anticipate that the foreign court would feel constrained to apply unreconstructed English law, which might very well entitle the principal, for example, to dismiss the agent without having to pay a single franc or whatever in compensation. This would be an odd situation. The parties—and notably, the agent, whose interests are most likely to be detrimentally affected—could perhaps avoid the problem by taking the D.T.I.'s advice and by incorporating the Regulations via a contractual term in their agreement. Otherwise, however, the question is whether the foreign court could fall back on some public policy argument enabling it to apply its own domestic law, which has enacted the Directive. As these issues suggest, the book under review is not simply a straightforward bread-and-butter account of the Regulations but incorporates critical questioning and comment.

Although European harmonization was its primary aim, the European Directive has not been

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