The Supreme Court has today handed down judgment in the Covid-19 Business Interruption insurance test case of The Financial Conduct Authority v Arch and Others. Herbert Smith Freehills acted for the FCA who advanced the claim for policyholders. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed Insurers’ appeals and allowed all four of the FCA’s appeals (in two cases … Read more

The High Court has found in favour of a claimant investor in a dispute arising from the termination of her Bitcoin trading account with an online trading platform and concurrent cancellation of open trades (as a result of an alleged money laundering risk): Ang v Reliantco Investments Ltd [2020] EWHC 3242 (Comm). Although the claim … Read more

The High Court has recently handed down another interesting decision on the so-called Quincecare duty: Roberts v The Royal Bank of Scotland plc [2020] EWHC 3141 (Comm). Quincecare duty claims typically arise where a bank received a payment mandate from an authorised signatory of its customer, and executed the order, in circumstances where (allegedly) there … Read more

The High Court has granted a claim brought by a bank against two companies (and the managing director of one of them) to recover outstanding sums due under a USD 9 million loan agreement and related security agreements (the Finance Agreements): Aegean Baltic Bank SA v Renzlor Shipping Ltd & Ors [2020] EWHC 2851 (Comm). … Read more

The Commercial Court has granted summary judgment in favour of a bank seeking to recover payments under Credit Agreements entered into with the Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company, Petroleos De Venezuela SA (PDVSA), finding that the defaulting borrower had no real prospect of successfully defending the claims on the basis of certain US Sanctions … Read more

In a decision earlier this year, the Commercial Court considered the impact of a force majeure clause on a repayment obligation in a contract for the sale of goods: Totsa Total Oil Trading SA v New Stream Trading AG [2020] EWHC 855 (Comm). (The judgment was given in March 2020 but the transcript has only … Read more

The Commercial Court has granted declaratory relief concerning a bank’s rights under an interest rate hedging arrangement governed by the 1992 ISDA Master Agreement: BNP Paribas SA v Trattamento Rifiuti Metropolitani SPA [2020] EWHC 2436 (Comm). This is the substantive English trial judgment in the long-running (and cross-jurisdictional) dispute between BNP Paribas S.A. (the Bank) … Read more

The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision on a claim involving the legal meaning of ‘goodwill’ and the contractual construction of an exclusion clause excluding liability for lost goodwill: Primus International Holding Co & Ors v Triumph Controls – UK Ltd & Anor [2020] EWCA Civ 1228. In doing so, the Court … Read more