Drawing on a rich and diverse legal heritage, Unjustified Enrichment provides a comprehensive and clearly structured exposition and an in-depth evaluation of the South African law of unjustified enrichment. The book analyses each of the general elements of enrichment liability, and suggests a manageable way of dealing with the intractable problems that arise in the context of indirect or multi-party enrichment.


Key Features

• An accessibly written and structured exposition of the entire field of the law of unjustified enrichment
• Includes a full analysis of all the major developments of the last twenty years since the classic statement of this area of law by Wouter de Vos in his Verrykingsaanspreeklikheid in die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg (1987)
• Relevant to practice: Provides in-depth coverage of claims by and against banks; unjustified enrichment flowing from failed contracts; the rules surrounding the reclaim of improperly exacted tax; an analysis of each of the general elements of enrichment liability; the various defences available to fend off an enrichment claims
• Extensive use of the comparative method
  
  

PART I: INTRODUCTION, HISTORY AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES

• General introduction
• The classification of the law of unjustified enrichment
• The internal structure of enrichment liability

PART II: THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF ENRICHMENT LIABILITY

• Enrichment by transfer: General principles
• Reversing an undue transfer:
• Transfer of money or property to fulfil a putative obligation ('mistaken payment')
• Transfer of money or property under compulsion
• Transfer of money or property in terms of an illegal agreement
• Knowing transfer of money or property in terms of a void (but not illegal) contract to achieve a specific purpose
  Reversing transfers in the context of failed contracts
• Imposed enrichment (Enrichment due to unauthorised expenditure)
• Enrichment by invasion of the rights of others (Enrichment by act of the party enriched)

PART III: DEFENCES

• Defences: loss of enrichment; estoppel; passing-on; and prescription

• Academics, in South Africa and abroad
• Judges
• Legal practitioners
• Students
• Libraries