Bank Notes

A - Attribution of knowledge

10/3/20

BILTA (UK) LTD v NATWEST MARKETS PLC [2020] EWHC 546 (Ch)

Contains useful summaries of the principles of dishonest assistance [159], fraudulent trading [175], vicarious liability for the acts of employees [193], attribution of knowledge to companies [217], and the test of dishonesty [225]. In the context of claims that traders participated in the commission of missing trader intra-community VAT fraud, in order to prove dishonesty the claimants had to show that the traders had a suspicion, based upon some identifiable matters, that the trading that they were doing was part of, or connected in some way, with VAT fraud [235]. On the facts, the test was satisfied and the defendants were liable for dishonest assistance and knowingly being a party to fraudulent trading by the claimant companies.

30/10/19

SINGULARIS HOLDINGS LTD v DAIWA CAPITAL MARKETS EUROPE LTD [2019] UKSC 50

The defendant broker acted in breach of its duty of care (established in Barclays Bank v Quincecare, 1992) by allowing a director who was the claimant’s sole shareholder, to transfer some $204m from a client account held for the claimant by the defendant when the defendant had been put on inquiry that the director was acting fraudulently. The trial judge had been right to hold that the director’s knowledge was not to be attributed to the claimant, that illegality was not a defence to the claim and that the compensation to which the company was entitled should be discounted by 25% for contributory negligence.

22/4/15

JETIVIA SA v BILTA (UK) LTD [2015] UKSC 23

An application to strike out a claim by a company on grounds of ex turpi causa / illegality failed principally because the alleged wrongful activity of the claimant company’s directors and shareholder could not be attributed to the company. Knowledge cannot be attributed to a company if the company is the victim of wrongdoing by its directors, or of which its directors had notice, and the claim is brought by the company’s liquidator as a result of the wrongdoing. The decision in Stone & Rolls v Moore Stephens (2009) is to be confined to its own facts. It makes no difference if the defendants are out of the jurisdiction because section 213 Insolvency Act 1986 has extra-territorial effect so a liquidator can bring a fraudulent trading claim under the section against persons domiciled abroad.

13/2/15

D&G CARS LTD v ESSEX POLICE AUTHORITY [2015] EWHC 226 (QB)

Considers principles to be applied in deciding whether a breach of contract is a repudiatory breach [170], circumstances in which a term as to good faith or integrity and honesty is to be implied into a contract [174] and circumstances in which liability for acts involving dishonesty or lack of integrity can be attributed to a company [178].

4/11/14

UBS AG v KOMMUNALE WASSERWERKE LEIPZIG GMBH [2014] EWHC 3615 (Comm)

Considers the legal principles for setting aside contracts on grounds of bribery of agents [587], conflict of interest on the part of an agent [621], attribution of an agent’s knowledge to a company [628], fraudulent misrepresentation [642], contractual estoppel [773] and rescission [783].