SET-OFF LAW AND PRACTICE: AN INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK. Ed by William Johnston and Thomas Werlen Oxford: Oxford University Press (www.oup.co.uk ), 2nd edn, 2010. lxxi + 576 pp. ISBN 9780199579716. £165.
| Published date | 01 May 2011 |
| Pages | 321-322 |
| Author | Ross Gilbert Anderson |
| Date | 01 May 2011 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2011.0042 |
“Set-off”, it is commonly said, is not a term of art in Scots law. The result has been a focus on particular types of set-off. Compensation, for instance, is covered in the commendably concise – contemporary law reformers, take heed – Compensation Act 1592 (APS, III, 573, c 61; RPS 1592/4/83). “A just and positive statute,” Lord Cunninghame remarked of it, “most creditable to the wisdom and sound views of the ancient Scottish legislature” (
Other types of set-off, in contrast, are much more important. The Scots law of insolvency set-off (“balancing of accounts in bankruptcy”) is one area of daily practical importance which has been rather neglected by modern scholarship, although it has been the subject of a very useful recent decision by Lord Hodge:
The book under review collects together national reports which each concisely describe the nature of the different types of set-off in that jurisdiction. Alas, there is no national report for Scotland (unlike in the companion volume, also edited by William Johnston,
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