Equitable Assignments: A Critical Perspective on Assignment Theory

C H Tham’s Understanding the Law of Assignment elicited renewed interest in the law of assignments, with principles that were previously seen as settled being revisited, reviewed, and reconsidered afresh. In considering the views presented in Tham’s book, two questions arise in relation to the equitable assignment of legal choses in action: first, what does it mean to equitably assign legal choses in action, including the specific formalities that are required in order for them to be brought about, and secondly, how is it that these assignments operate from a theoretical point of view? In addressing these two questions, this article presents the central claim that no singular theory of assignment law is able to accurately explain how assignments operate, as each theory fails to properly capture the interaction between assignment law, and property law, trusts law and agency law. This being said, a theory of equitable assignments that involves the creation of trusts seems to make the most sense normatively.