Book reviews: Commercial Fraud in Civil Practice

Commercial Fraud in Civil Practice

Paul McGrath

Oxford University Press, £145, ISBN: 9780199290574

This reviewer has just returned from seeing clients in Cairo. Seeing the pyramids reminded me of Nick Madoff and his fraudulent pyramid scheme. How did he do it? Because the prosaic reality is that discovering fraud is not easy. The facts are usually so complex that the precise legal remedy is not easy to identify. As is well known to many commercial litigators, civil fraud crosses many different areas of law, including restitution, contract, tort, private international law, property law and insolvency. Practitioners in the area are usually limited to the traditional texts in these various fields, and there has never been a substantial text dedicated entirely and exclusively to the subject of fraud, in all its various guises. Until now, that is. For gathering together the rich threads of all those areas into one text, Mr McGrath deserves huge praise. His first class text also draws on the massive wealth of jurisprudence across many jurisdictions.

Not only does it do much more than what it says on the tin, but it amply fulfils the aim Mr McGrath sets himself on p 5: “To identify and bring before practitioners the necessary materials and arguments for commercial fraud litigation.” But this is not all. To any lawyer working in the field: this book is your scythe. It is utterly excellent. I have already found it indispensable. Any civil fraud lawyer should be sure it is within easy reach. Expand the library budget if needs be, but do not be without it.

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