FOREIGN BILL or EXCHANGE is a bill which is either both drawn and accepted abroad; or drawn by a person residing abroad on a person in this country, or the reverse. If a bill be drawn abroad, and accepted in England, it does not require a stamp; but if drawn in this country upon a correspondent abroad, or a foreign house, it must be stamped (19 and 20 Vict. c. 97, ss. 6 and 7); and when drawn abroad, it must be stamped by the holder, before he can present it for payment, or indorse, transfer, or otherwise negotiate it within the United Kingdom (Chitty on Bills of Exchange, 72). It has, how ever, been decided' that the stat. 17 and 18 ti let. c. 83, s. 3, does not render a stamp necessary where a bill drawn abroad has been indorsed abroad to a person in England, and presented by him for acceptance in England (Phillimore, InternWtional Law, iv. 609). Formerly, a bill drawn or payable in Scotland or Ireland, was foreign in Eng land; but such bills were made inland by the statute just mentioned; and the same regu lation was extended to the islands of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark (s. 7). See BILL. It has been established as a rule in England, that the liabilities,of the drawer
the accepter, and indorser, shall be governed by the laws of the countries in which the drawing, acceptance, and indorsement respectively took place (Phillimore's Interna tional Law, iv. p. 606 and-506). In the case of bills which are both drawn and accepted abroad, and which are thus in reality foreign contracts, but of which the accepter is a native of this country, and which are sought to be enforced in the courts either of Eng land or Scotland, a distinction is made between the contract and the remedy: "What ever relates to the nature of the obligation—ad valorem contractus—is to be governed by the law of the country where it is made—the lex loci; whatever relates to the remedy, by snits to compel performance, action for a breach—ad decisiovem litis—is governed by the lex-fori—the law of the country to whose courts the application is made for per formance or for damages."—Lord Brougham in Don v. Lippman, house of lords, 26th. May, 1837: Shaw and Maclean, ii. p. 723.
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