The High Court has granted a lender’s application for summary judgment in relation to its USD $10.5 million claim against a borrower and guarantor for outstanding sums due under finance agreements: Adare Finance DAC v Yellowstone Capital Management SA & Anor [2020] EWHC 2760 (Comm). The decision will be welcomed by financial institutions considering their … Read more

This month, there have been some significant regulatory announcements in relation to climate-related disclosures. These announcements are a result of the increasing focus on climate change and sustainability risks across governments, regulators and industry and a continued move towards corporate compliance with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures’ (TCFD) recommendations. While not launching new … 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 High Court has struck out the claims of over 200,000 claimants against two companies in a group of companies (domiciled in England and Australia respectively) arising out of an incident in Brazil. The court struck out the claims as an abuse of process in light of concurrent proceedings and compensation schemes in Brazil: Municipio … Read more

The Supreme Court has held that a claimant who had engaged in mortgage fraud was not barred from bringing a negligence claim in relation to the property transaction associated with the fraud: Stoffel & Co v Grondona [2020] UKSC 42. While the claim in this case was against the claimant’s solicitors, it is a noteworthy decision for … Read more

Herbert Smith Freehills LLP have published an article in Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s proposals for regulating climate-related disclosures and the litigation risks which may arise for issuers from such proposals. Climate change has been part of the political and regulatory discourse for years. However, it … Read more

The High Court has recently considered a test case under s.138D of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), in the context of alleged breaches of statutory obligations under the Consumer Credit Sourcebook (CONC) for failing to take repeat borrowing into consideration when making lending decisions: Kerrigan v Elevate Credit International Limited (t/a Sunny) … 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