It is not often that cases concerning bankers' commercial credits reach the Court of Appeal; such a case was W. J. Alan & Co. Ltd. v. El Nasr Export and Import Co. hereafter referred to as the El Nasr case. It would be regrettable that such a case should pass without comment, particularly as the decision also touched important principles of the general law of Contract. This paper will consider firstly the opening of a bankers' commercial credit in two respects: (i) it has recently been contended that whether the credit binds the issuing bank to the seller depends on whether the buyer's duty to procure the credit is a condition precedent to the contract of sale; it will be suggested that the buyer's duty is usually no more than an ordinary term of the contract. (ii) It has been argued that the procuring of a credit by the buyer discharges absolutely his duty to pay the seller under the contract of sale. It will be seen that the courts have now rejected this argument and for good reason. The second part of this paper considers the waiver of duties under the credit, leading to an appreciation of the doctrine sometimes called equitable or promissory estoppel. In particular it will be contended that (i) he who benefits from the waiver must suffer a detriment, although of a rather diluted kind; and (ii) that the waiver may not always be withdrawn, even after the giving of reasonable notice.

The legal status of contracts tainted by the restraint of trade rules is by no means clear. It has been judicially stated that such contracts are “not ‘illegal’, in the sense that a contract to do a prohibited or immoral act is illegal, [and] not ‘unenforceable’, in the sense that a contract within the Statute of Frauds is unenforceable for want of writing. These covenants lie somewhere in between. They are invalid and unenforceable. The law does not punish them. It simply takes no notice of them. They are void, not illegal.” This article discusses the legal position if a claim is made for the recovery of money paid or securities delivered under such contracts, in the particular context of pension rights.

The Defective Premises Act 1972—which did not come into force until 1 January 1974—was intended to do three things: first, it was intended to create a new civil remedy against incompetent architects and jerry builders who design or build bad dwelling-houses; secondly, it was intended to abolish the anomalous immunity of vendors and lessors from negligence actions; and thirdly, it was intended to widen the liability of landlords for defects in the premises which they let. The Act is based on the draft Bill annexed to the Law Commission's fortieth report, “Civil Liability of Vendors and Lessors of Defective Premises”—although in the Act the Law Commission's proposals have been considerably watered down. During the passage of the Act through Parliament the Law Commission was congratulated on its “remarkable piece of work,” and comentators have since welcomed it, either without criticism or else with fulsome praise. So excited was everyone by the label “law reform” that no one seems to have pointed out a number of obvious defects in the Law Commission's original proposals, defects which were multiplied when those proposals were heavily watered down. The final measure is open to a number of criticisms. It is, with all due respect to the Law Commission and to the sponsors of the Bill, a measure which adopts excessively cumbrous means to achieve relatively modest ends; which is drafted in terms which are longwinded, ugly and obscure; and which ultimately changes little—a poor show in view of the complications it creates in the process.