Q – Quistclose trust
23/5/13
CHIANG v MISHCON DE REYA, (Ch)
The court was not satisfied on a summary judgment application that funds paid to solicitors had been subject to a Quistclose trust and could be said to have been paid away wrongfully.
15/3/12
TUTHILL v EQUINE FX LTD, QB (COMM)
A company had failed to provide foreign exchange to the claimant and was liable for breach of contract. The claimant’s funds could be shown to have been paid by the company to its director. But summary judgment would not be given against the director for dishonest assistance because for that purpose it had to be shown the funds were impressed with a trust. The fact that the money had been paid for a specific purpose was not enough.
25/2/13
CHALLINOR v JULIET BELLIS & CO [2013] EWHC 347 (Ch)
Money paid by investors into a solicitor's client account had not been intended to be loans to a company. In the absence of a written agreement the terms on which the money had been provided were too uncertain to conclude that they had been provided in escrow. Although stipulation of an exclusive purpose was usually necessary to give rise to a Quistclose trust, the solicitors had held the funds on an analogous type of resulting trust for otherwise there would have been no good reason for the requirement to pay the funds into a client account. The solicitors had acted in breach of trust by releasing the funds to the company without receiving unequivocal instructions to do so from the beneficiary of the trust.
14/11/12
BIEBER v TEATHERS LTD [2012] EWCA Civ 1466
Money originally paid into a client account ceased to be trust money when it was transferred in accordance with an investment agreement into a partnership account. It could not then be regarded as subject to a Quistclose trust. Payment into the partnership account was payment to the client so it also ceased to be client money within the FSA handbook rules. A claim based on breach of trust therefore failed.
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