In “Notice of assignment and discharge by performance”,1 Chee Ho Tham has sought to challenge the settled rule that, following notice of equitable assignment of a legal debt, the debtor is not discharged by payment to the assignor but must pay again to the assignee. It is said that the effect of the rule is to have notice of equitable assignment modify the substance of the debtor’s obligation.2 At law an obligation is discharged by performance precisely in accordance with its terms—ie, in case of a debt, by payment to the creditor—and variation of that position by unilateral notice is at odds both with the

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