Is this a book worth buying? Yes, but caveat emptor. The Enterprise Act 2002, inserting into Insolvency Act 1986, a new s 72A, essentially abolished receivership. This book does not deal with the new law, except incidentally. However, the pre 2003 law will continue to apply to floating charges created before September 2003. To this extent, the book is a welcome contribution to a subject that will continue to be of much practical importance. Nowhere else is such a detailed treatment of receivership in modern Scots law available. Further, the book contains much learning on the law of insolvency generally. The busy practitioner, needing answers to those troublesome details that receivership constantly throws up, should start here. The book is generally user friendly, although the writing is, at times, prolix and not always easy to follow. To echo Lord Hope’s comment in the foreword, this is a practical treatise. That is its strength. Indeed, it is in those sections of the book where practical advice is given (particularly on regulatory requirements) where the text is strongest. This edition has already been cited in the House of Lords: Re Spectrum Plus Ltd (In Liquidation) [2005] 3 WLR 58, at para 51, per Lord Hope of Craighead. The book also contains some 130 pages of appendices with style charges, assignations and the like.

Some general criticisms, however, may still be made. First, the focus on receivership appears, at least to this reviewer, somewhat odd. A unitary treatment would have covered receivership as but one aspect of the modern law of floating charges. Due to this focus, there is no comparison between the attachment on receivership and the absence of any attachment provisions on administration (although in a single line, in para 2.35, the authors rightly express disagreement with St Clair and Drummond Young, Corporate Insolvency in Scotland (3rd ed 2004) that administration does trigger attachment; cf D Cabrelli, 2005 SLT (News) 127). Second, since the authors limit themselves to receivership, some reference to Professor Gretton’s devastating analysis of the pre 2003 attachment provisions (see 2002) 6 Edin Land Registry 146) might have been appropriate. Third, and more generally, there is very little reference to secondary literature or even detailed citation of authority; for example, in the detailed discussion of the transfer of a business as a going concern, little reference is made to the considerable body of Scottish authority to the effect that where a universality of assets is transferred, the transferee becomes liable for the transferor’s debts. Fourth, discussion of common law rules is often unclear. Many paragraphs read like a summary of the law reports: the arguments and decision are summarised, but neither meaningful comment nor much analysis is included. Take the treatment of Tay Valley Joinery Ltd v CF Financial Services Ltd, 1987 SLT 207 (para 5.22): a sweeping assertion is made, but no reasons are articulated as to how or why the view advanced can be supported (indeed, is not entirely consistent with the view expressed later at paras 8.18 – 8.19).

Having said all that, these criticisms must be taken in context: this is a good book from which much can be gained. The publishers, Tottel, have done a fine job in producing one of their first Scottish monographs (although some typing errors remain). It is to be hoped their association with Scots law will be long and profitable.

Ross Gilbert Anderson, Edinburgh Law School, Scots Law Times: October 2005