Bills of Exchange Act 1882

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bills of Exchange Act 1882" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Bills of Exchange Act 1882

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to codify the law relating to Bills of Exchange, Cheques, and Promissory Notes.
Citation	45 & 46 Vict. c. 61
Introduced by	Sir Mackenzie Chalmers
Dates
Commencement	18 August 1882
Other legislation
Repeals/revokes	Bills of Exchange Act 1697, Bill of Exchange Act 1704
Status: Current legislation
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

The Bills of Exchange Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 61) is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament concerning bills of exchange. The Act was drafted by Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, who later drafted the Sale of Goods Act 1893 and the Marine Insurance Act 1906.

Bills of exchange are widely used to finance trade and, when discounted with a financial institution, to obtain credit.

The formal legal definition of a bill of exchange is as follows:

An unconditional order in writing addressed by one person to another, signed by the person giving it, requiring the person to whom it is addressed to pay on demand or at a fixed or determinable future time a sum certain in money to order or to bearer.^[1]

Expressing this in less formal language, it is a written order from one party (the drawer) to another (the drawee) to pay a specified sum on demand or on a specified date to the drawer or to a third party specified by the drawer.