This short book is based on the series of Gilbart Lectures originally given by the author in 1971. Despite the impression given by the title, the book is more concerned with domestic banking transactions which have a foreign element (and so raise conflicts of laws problems), rather than with those concluded in the genuinely international market, such as eurocurrency credits.

The book is divided into four main parts. The first is very general and arms the reader with the basic concepts of conflicts of laws. The second section describes the legal implications of a miscellany of instances in which the United Kingdom Bills of Exchange Act 1882 and the Cheques Act 1957 are engaged across national boundaries, when a cheque is drawn, negotiated or presented in a foreign jurisdiction.

The third section deals with the rights of the banker under English law who has lent sums to a foreign debtor who has become insolvent, and has some interesting points to make on realization of securities for banker’s advances where a foreign element is involved. In the final section, on government intervention in foreign banking transactions, the author deals with the difficult questions of expropriation, exchange controls and currency problems which plague not only domestic transactions with a foreign element, but also truly international transactions. It is this part of the work which has the potential to be the most interesting but is simultaneously the most disappointing. Much of the text is rather out of date (perhaps an inevitable trap for a work written in 1971 and only lightly revised for publication in 1987) and there is a clear omission of some recent material.

Notwithstanding this, the book is clear and informative about some of the fundamental conflicts of laws problems involved in banking (and other commercial) transactions with a foreign element. It will be most useful to persons beginning a study of this area, or to those wishing clarification of some of the myriad of confusing points with which it abounds.