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Neal a fait l’objet de diverses interprétations au cours des siècles, dont une a formé l’assise de l’énoncé général selon lequel, en raison du principe de l’irrévocabilité du paiement, le tiré doit assumer la perte découlant de la contrefaçon de la signature du tireur, sans égard au fait qu’il ait pu poser des actes préjudiciables en tenant pour acquis que l’effet était valide (voir S. A. Scott, « Comment on Benjamin Geva’s Paper : “Reflections on the Need to Revise the Bills of Exchange Act — Some Doctrinal Aspects” » (1981‑1982), 6 Rev.
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[31] Price v. Neal has been interpreted in various ways over the centuries. One of the interpretations serves as a basis for a broad statement that the principle of finality of payment requires the drawee to bear the loss where the drawer’s signature is forged, irrespective of detrimental reliance (see S. A. Scott, “Comment on Benjamin Geva’s Paper: ‘Reflections on the Need to Revise the Bills of Exchange Act — Some Doctrinal Aspects’” (1981-82), 6 Can. Bus. L.J. 331 (“Comment on Reflections”), at p. 342). A second interpretation of Price v. Neal is that the drawee cannot rely on the forgery after acceptance (or payment) of a bill bearing a signature he should know to be forged or is deemed to have negligently omitted to verify. Yet a third interpretation put forward for Price v. Neal limits its scope to instances where two innocent parties have equal equities but the holder of the bill has legal title to the money (see Lipkin Gorman v. Karpnale Ltd., [1991] 2 A.C. 548 (H.L.); B. Geva, “Reflections on the Need to Revise the Bills of Exchange Act — Some Doctrinal Aspects: Panel Discussion” (1981-82), 6 Can. Bus. L.J. 269 (“Reflections”), at pp. 308-9; J. S. Ziegel, B. Geva and R. C. C. Cuming, Commercial and Consumer Transactions: Cases, Text and Materials (3rd ed. 1995), vol. II, at p. 396, citing J. B. Ames, “The Doctrine of Price v. Neal” (1891), 4 Harv. L. Rev. 297, at pp. 297-99). In view of the various interpretations of Price v. Neal, I do not accept that it provides a basis for an unqualified rule that a drawee will never have any recourse against either the collecting bank or the payee where payment has been made on the forged signature of the drawer.
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