A Festschrift, to the unfamiliar, is a book honouring a respected academic. Derived from German, the word is likely to be unfamiliar to the Singaporean legal fraternity. Lives in the Law is the first Festschrift to be published in Singapore honouring a legal academic. The editors have not, however, been content with achieving a first in Singapore. As the editors wryly observe in their Preface (at p. xi), what had initially germinated as plans for three separate Festschriften evolved into "the first collection to honour three [legal academics] in one go", thus achieving another first, this time internationally. Although the undertaking spans less than 300 pages in all, the colossal nature of it is evident from a quick perusal of the acknowledgments (at p. xiv).

Networks as Connected Contracts is the seventh volume in the International Studies in the Theory of Private Law Series. This series of books "aims to investigate the normative and theoretical foundations of the law governing relations between citizens". The book under review was originally written in the German language by Gunther Teubner, and translated into the English language by Michelle Everson. Hugh Collins, who also provides a substantial introduction spanning some 72 pages, is the editor of the present book. The subject of the book is the business network, which is "a contractual network consist[ing] of a number of independent firms that enter a pattern of interrelated contracts, which are designed to confer on the parties many of the benefits of co-ordination achieved through vertical integration in a single firm, without in fact ever creating a single integrated business entity such as a corporation or a partnership" (at p. 1). The legal problem with business networks is that they do not fit neatly into recognised legal concepts and hence escape easy legal resolution. A paradigm example of a business network is the retail franchise: it is neither a bilateral contractual arrangement (since that ignores the interdependance of the separate franchise agreements), nor a company (since that ignores the general independence of the franchisees from the franchisor). Through the use of an approach known loosely as "sociological jurisprudence", Teubner advances the novel idea of "connected contracts", which he in turn uses to address the legal problems arising from business networks. This book is a synthesis and development of Teubner's earlier works on the same subject.

This book examines "various aspects of the evolving balance between antitrust and_x000D_ regulation in the European Union and the United States" (at p. vii) and contains papers_x000D_ originally presented at a conference in 2006 which focused on network industries. The contributors include distinguished economists and lawyers from Europe and the United States. As the editors point out, "the chapters span a range of related topics, some focusing on general observations about the relationship between antitrust and regulation in the respective jurisdictions and others tying those observations to particular industrial sectors" (at p. vii).

Equity, through the mechanism of the trust, may generally be thought to encompass a dualistic approach capable of resolving non-commercial shared property disputes through the use of either the resulting trust or the common intention constructive trust as alternative vehicles of remedy. In this monograph, the author addresses head-on this dualistic characteristic of equity-in-action by offering a broad-picture critique of the law in an effort to convince readers that the common intention constructive trust should prevail over the resulting trust as the preferred analytical vehicle whenever equity intervenes to resolve shared property disputes in non-commercial contexts.

I have two disclosures to make to readers of this review. One is that Tan and Thio are both well known to me personally as colleagues and friends, so readers must take this into account when evaluating my evaluation of this book. The second is that I hate casebooks. As a researcher, I find them confusing, incomplete (despite their density) and unhelpful (because of their density). As a teacher, I dread having to deal with student complaints that the expensive tome is unnecessarily confusing, dense and unhelpful-thus reinforcing the learned helplessness and deference to authority and tradition which the casebook method of teaching is so often criticised for perpetuating-and I resent having to spend hours supplementing and remedying the assigned casebook with my own photocopies, handouts, summaries and class discussion questions.

The law of trusts today is an area of law which is characterised by fluidity and dynamism. This can be partially attributed to the modern tendency in equity to place more emphasis on the principles underlying detailed rules formulated in cases rather than on the rules themselves, treating these rules more like guidelines which a court can refer to in applying the principles.