Book Review: Unjust enrichment in South African law: Rethinking enrichment by transfer

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Published date: 16 August 2019
• Date: 16 August 2019
• Author: Phillip Hellwege
• Pages: 633-638

Unjust Enrichment in South African Law: Rethinking Enrichment by

Transfer by H Scott. Oxford: Hart Publishing 2013. xx & 229 pp. ISBN

9781849462235. Price £55 (hard cover)

Helen Scott’s Unjust Enrichment in South Africa n Law is a revised version

of her Oxford doct oral thesis of 2005 which she w rote under the super vision

of Andrew Bur rows and Tony Honoré. In essence, Scot t develops an analysis

of the South African law of unjustied enrichment which departs f rom that

which is followed t raditionally by the South African literature. Her analysis

is rather based on Peter Birks’ unjust factors approach. She herself, however,

looks upon her analysis as a mi xed approach.

The book ha s already receive d considerable att ention: in Januar y 2014 Eri c

Descheemaeker of the University of Edi nburg h organised for the Edinburgh

Centre of Private Law a workshop on New Directions in Unjust ied

Enrichment: Learning f rom South Africa with Scot t and Jacques du Plessis

as mai n speakers and with A ndrew Burrows, Hector MacQueen and Danie

Visser giving response s. In her presentation at that workshop Scott int roduced

the attendees to the t heses of her book. The workshop was attended by scholars

from England, Germany, Scotland and South Afr ica. The involvement of

scholars from different jurisdictions indicates that Scott’s book is not only

of importa nce to a South Afr ican audience but that it i s of interest also from

a compar ative point of view. A nd it is a comparative p erspective which t he

present review will ta ke.

In her introduction (1-19) Scott r st gives an account of t he development

of the different condictiones in Roman law and in Roma n-Dutch law and

analyses their inter play with the general doct rine of unjustied enrichment as

BOOK REVIEWS / BOEKRESENSIES 633

(2014) 25 Stell LR 633

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