Details
The Law of Assignment is the leading text on the law relating to intangible property or choses in action. Its clear and approachable structure covers all forms of intangible property (debts, rights under contract, securities, intellectual property, leases, rights/causes of action and equitable rights), considering the nature of intangible property, how it comes into being and how it is transferred or assigned.
The first part of the book analyses the general principles regarding intangibles and their transfer, and the second examines the practical considerations relating to particular types of intangibles, securities, insurance contracts, leases and intellectual property under the law.
The third edition includes new chapters on powers of attorney and factoring, areas particularly important to legal practice. Other significant developments include the expansion of the chapter on leases to include leasing of chattels, and more material on securities, especially regarding the operation of settlement systems.
1: Introduction
Part I: The Nature of Intangible Property
2: Nature of Choses in Action
3: Documentary Intangibles
4: Debts
5: Rights Under a Contract
6: Securities
7: Intellectual Property
8: Leases
9: Rights or Causes of Action
Part II: The Transfer of Intangible Property
10: Transfer of Choses in Action: Historical Overview
11: Conceptual Underpinnings
12: Negotiation
13: Assignment of Choses in Action
14: Transfer of Choses in Action on Trust
15: Promises to Assign or to Create a Trust
16: Assignments Under Section 136 of the Law of Property Act 1925
Part III: Transfers in Particular Contexts
17: Transfer of Insurance Contracts
18: Transfer of Leases
19: Transfer of Securities
20: Transfer of Intellectual Property
Part IV: Intangible Property that is Incapable of Transfer
21: Overview
22: Burdens
23: Public Policy
24: Champerty and Maintenance
25: Personal Obligations
26: Prohibitions on Assignment
Part V: The Effects of Assignment, The Persistence of an Owner's Rights and the Vindication of Property Rights
27: Conceptual Underpinnings
28: Loss of Title
29: Extinction of Intangible Property
30: Following and Tracing Property
31: Personal Actions Protecting Property
32: Other Remedies: Subrogation and Set-Off
33: The Continuing Role of the Assignor
Part VI: Special Regimes for the Transfer
34: Insolvency and other Special Regimes
Part VII: Security
35: Security
Part VIII: Conflict of Laws
36: Assignment and the Conflict of Laws
Marcus Smith QC, Barrister at Fountain Court Chambers., and Nico Leslie, Barrister at Fountin Court Chambers Barrister at Fountain Court Chambers
Review(s) from previous edition
"The resulting 616-page volume is a triumph of text book writing. It was a job worth doing and Smith has done it exceedingly well. The book is excellently structured and easy to navigate. Its coverage is about as comprehensive as it is possible to wish for...In conclusion, Smith's treatise is a triumph, and one of the most important new works in commercial law for decades... - Professor Gerard McMeel (2008) 37 CLWR 100
"Smith is overly modest in saying that the English law of assignment is "unnecessarily complex" (p140): he resolves a number of complexities, and demonstrates that other complexities are necessary outworkings of the different natures of the various rights concerned. Smith's achievements in these ways can be openly acknowledged, as can the many other good qualities found in his book." - Restitution Law Review - [2008] RLR 257 20/10/2008
"To practitioners in this area of law, this book will be an invaluable companion." - International Company and Commercial Law Review 2008
"...a splendid piece of work. The coverage is comprehensive, practical and brisk...if you are a practitioner needing an answer to (almost) any question on assignment, then Smith must be the choice: readable, well-laid-out and limpidly clear..." - Professor Andrew Tettenborn [2007] LMCLQ 571
"This breadth, coupled with Smith's clear writing, gives the work a unique force." - Restitution Law Review - [2008] RLR 257 20/10/2008
"Given the unfathomably diffuse nature of its subject-matter and the lack of any contemporary precedent, it is a tremendous achievement that Smith's book exists at all. Smith has done the legal community a huge service by bringing together much of the relevant primary and secondary material which make up the large, amorphous and growing body of law on assignment and mechanisms having an equivalent effect to transfer in one fairly compact and succinctly written volume." - Chee Ho Tham (2008) 124 LQR 175
