I - Indirect benefit
26/7/18
CMOC SALES & MARKETING LTD v PERSONS UNKNOWN [2018] EWHC 2230 (Comm)
Considers the proof required in fraud claims where the defendants do not engage in the litigation process or appear at trial and service has been effected by alternative means including by Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. A thief of stolen funds is to be treated as a fiduciary holding the funds on constructive trust [76]. Summarises requirements for claims of dishonest assistance [89] and unlawful means conspiracy [92]. Knowledge required to establish dishonest assistance and conspiracy does not require it to be shown that the defendant intended to injure an identified victim. It is sufficient if the defendant knows that there is a victim [117]. Also summarises requirements for claims of knowing receipt [128] and unjust enrichment [140]. Where there are direct and indirect recipients, there is only one true recipient for the purpose of an unjust enrichment claim and the claimant can elect which to pursue. Compound interest is available for proprietary claims and knowing receipt but not for dishonest assistance. Costs incurred in pursuing orders from courts abroad can be claimed as damages [172].
28/3/14
RELFO LTD v VARSANI [2014] EWCA Civ 360
The judge below had been entitled to infer that funds which a director caused a company to transfer to another company’s account were the source of money paid by that company to the defendant. What matters is that there has been an exchange of the value of the claimant's property into other property for which it was substituted, and so on down the chain of substitutes (Foskett v McKeown, 2001). There is no need for the payments to be in chronological order so long as they are made in exchange for a promise of reimbursement. There was also an alternative claim in unjust enrichment. Although any principle for recovery in unjust enrichment from indirect recipients needed refining in later cases, here on the judge's findings, as a matter of substance, or economic reality the defendant was a direct recipient or the causal connection between the payment and receipt was sufficiently made out.