The chapter first discusses the general principles governing a bank's liability. One way to approach the topic involves a consideration of the relevant doctrines whereby banks can incur liability. Section I selects just a few such doctrines. Another approach considers the various factual matters which feed into legal decisions about bank liability. The same factors recur across different legal doctrines: indeed, they arise for consideration in other systems of law. This is the focus of Section II. Section III considers advisory liability, which can arise in two ways: a failure to advise where the law imposes a duty to do so, and a failure to advise adequately when a bank assumes the task of advising a customer or third party. Section IV turns to the English law doctrines which have a particular application to transactions involving those the law regards as vulnerable. The final section deals with ‘lender liability’.
Chapter
10. Advisory and Transactional Liability
Ross Cranston, Emilios Avgouleas, Kristin van Zweiten, Theodor van Sante, and Christoper Hare
Chapter
4. Banks and finance
Iris Chiu and Joanna Wilson
This chapter focuses on the other core function of the banking business alongside taking in deposits from customers: lending. The traditional forms of lending include overdrafts, fixed-term loans, and syndicated loans. An overdraft generally involves an extension of credit by a bank to its customer via the customer’s current account. A fixed-term loan, as the name suggests, is a loan made for a fixed period of time. Meanwhile, a syndicated loan involves two or more banks that each contributes towards making a single loan to a borrower. The chapter then considers lender liability and the different forms of security a bank can use to realise the repayment of a loan in the event of default by the borrower. It also looks at recent innovations in the lending market that offer a competitive alternative to traditional bank lending, including payday lending and peer-to-peer lending.
