The Gazette 1995

GAZETTE

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

to read as it is small and on bright white paper.

provisions and rulings o f the Competition Authority to give an integrated approach to the topic. The coverage given is extremely extensive, amounting to sixty eight pages with helpful notes added by the authors in each section of their treatment o f the topic. Competition Law is quickly developing and the Competition Authority has issued a number o f Category Licenses since Contract and Materials was produced. Another area which receives extensive treatment from the authors is that of damages. Chapter 19 is structured so that one considers the reasons for the award o f damages in a breach of contract situation before considering possible heads o f loss. Consideration o f loss o f expectation damages is candidly entitled "assessment of damages as guess work". As well as relevant cases, the authors have also included useful extracts from various articles, such as O ' D r i s c o l l 's article on the rule in Bain v Fothergill and various extracts from McGregor on Damages. (Facsimile reprint of the 1885 revised edition, with a special introductory essay by W.N. Osborough), Publisher: The Round Hall Press, Dublin, 848 pp, hardback, £120. In 1885 the Irish Of f i ce at Westminister published an edition of the statutes passed in the parliaments held in Ireland between 1 3 10 (the third year o f the reign of King Edward IT) and 1800, the year o f the Act of Union, the third article o f which provided that "the said united kingdom be represented in one and the same parliament". The Irish Statute Law Revision Acts o f 1878 and 1 8 79 had clarified what enactments "may be regarded as spent or [as having] ceased to be in force otherwise than by express and specific repeal by Parliament or [as having] by Kevin Hoy The Irish Statutes 1 3 1 0 - 1 8 00

lapse o f time and change of circumstances, b e c ame unnecessary" and had drawn attention to the necessity of clarifying the status of statutes, ordinances and other materials o f the parliament. The work in the drafting o f those Acts would have facilitated the preparation of the edition. What is now republished is a record of the statute law, as specifically adopted by Irish parliaments, in force in Ireland then. The utility, in present day terms, o f most of the statutes now reprinted ( of course many more of which have since been repealed in the course o f the next century) is rather marginal, although the Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries of 1695 is o f course still o f relevance, and the Oireachtas earlier this summer repealed the 1 7 99 " Act for the Better Regulation of S t o c kb r ok e r s" enacted, with a purpose which is recognisable 2 0 0 years later, to secure that "proper persons only will be permitted to act as stockbrokers". The 1885 revised edition does not include the text o f statutes that were then clearly spent or had been expressly repealed at any time up to 1885, but does contain a most useful list o f all the statutes which had been enacted by parliament in Ireland between 1 3 10 and 1800. The volume might best be seen as a collection of "curious and authentic documents in the public history of this kingdom", in words used by the editor of an earlier edition of statutes first published in 1765. What is o f greatest value is the I introduction, in about 2 0 pages, by Professor W.N. Osborough. It is a | masterly summation of the legislative history o f Ireland up to the Union and o f the status o f legislation enacted at Westminister up to 1782 which had application also in Ireland, and also of ; the background to previous editions of Irish statutes. B e f o re the first o f these was published early in the seventeenth century King James / had complained that trying to discover the state of ; Irish law "was no better than walking in darkness".

The authors readily admit their dislike for areas such as infants contracts and gaming contracts and therefore the treatment o f these topics is limited. The authors complain of these areas as being shunned or being educationally incoherent. However, the Supreme Court decision is Flynn v Deneiffe clarified Irish Law regarding the tests to be applied in deciding whether a project amounts to a lottery and the judgment deserves to be quoted in the Materials book. Far from being an arcane area, the subject is one which is important for any practitioner advising advertising agencies, marketing companies or commercial clients seeking to expand their customer base. Likewise, the area of infant contracts while frustrating in terms o f endeavouring to achieve a c ommon thread o f logic in the various judgments, needs to be understood in its intricacies. This is particularly so for those who advise in the entertainment area, an increasingly important part o f Irish e c onomic life. A practitioner cannot refuse to give advice to a film production company which wishes to engage the services o f a child actor or to a 17 year old musician presented with a recording contract simply on the basis that the law to our mind does not make sense. knowledge of what admittedly might to termed to be private international law but nevertheless is important for contract. No mention is made o f the applicable legislation which implements the Rome Convention on the Law applicable to contractual obligations. My carping should not take away from the tremendous work which has gone into the book. It will be a very useful addition to the library o f any practitioner as well as being a handy companion for Robert C l a r k e 's Contract Law in Ireland. One of the most helpful chapters is that in relation to restraint o f trade. The authors have successfully combined judicial decisions, statutory The international nature o f Irish trade requires that practitioners have a

246