I - Incidental benefit
14/11/13
TFL MANAGEMENT SERVICES LTD v LLOYDS BANK PLC [2013] EWCA Civ 1415
The judge below had been wrong to grant summary judgment dismissing the claimant’s claim that the bank was liable in restitution to compensate a company for legal costs which the company had incurred in seeking to recover monies from a third party which were ultimately held to be book debts charged to the bank. The principle of incidental benefit on which the Judge had relied was not sufficiently established and although there were powerful arguments against the claim, the question whether the Bank benefited from the company’s claim and whether the company took the risk that the book debts might not belong to the company, required investigation at trial.
28/2/13
TFL MANAGEMENT SERVICES LTD v LLOYDS TSB BANK PLC [2013] EWHC 772 (Ch)
A bank was not liable in restitution to compensate a company for legal costs which the company had incurred in seeking to recover monies from a third party which were ultimately held to be book debts charged to the bank. Although the company had mistakenly believed it had the right to payment under an asset sale agreement, the bank had not been a party to the proceedings taken by the company against the third party and any benefit to the bank of the proceedings was not a direct benefit but only incidental. In those circumstances the bank could not be said to have been unjustly enriched by the action taken by the company.