The circumstances in which the English courts can grant permission to serve civil claims out of the jurisdiction will soon be expanded substantially, including a number of changes that could potentially make it easier to pursue cross-border fraud actions in some cases. A suite of proposals to amend and add to the existing list of … Read more

In the latest decision to consider the Quincecare duty, the Board of the Privy Council has confirmed that the duty is limited to protecting the customers of a bank, and does not extend to protecting any third party beneficiaries of its customer’s accounts. In doing so, the Board dismissed a claim by an investment fund against a … Read more

The High Court has acceded to a letter of request (LOR) from a Canadian court to order a number of banks to disclose documents for use in Canadian proceedings, but has declined to make other orders requested in the LOR. The judgment is a useful illustration of how the English courts approach such foreign judicial requests … Read more

The High Court has granted the first third-party debt order in relation to cryptocurrency in an application involving allegations of fraud related to a cryptocurrency initial coin offering.  A third-party debt order (formerly known as a garnishee order) is a method of enforcing a money judgment by recovering sums that are in the hands of … Read more

The Court of Appeal has dismissed a knowing receipt claim against a bank for receipt of shares transferred to it in breach of trust, on the basis that the claimant did not have a continuing proprietary interest in the shares: Byers & Ors v The Saudi National Bank [2022] EWCA Civ 43. The decision provides helpful … Read more

In the context of an application to strike out or summarily dismiss a claim for fraudulent misrepresentation, the High Court has held that conscious awareness of the alleged implied representation was not necessary for the claim to have a real prospect of success at trial: Crossley & Ors v Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft & Ors [2021] EWHC 3444 … Read more

The High Court has published a summary of its findings on liability in the long-running USD$5 billion civil fraud action brought by the Hewlett Packard group in connection with its acquisition of the UK software company Autonomy Corporation Limited (“Autonomy”) in 2012.  The claimants have “substantially succeeded” in their claims against two former Autonomy executives: … Read more

In the context of a claim by a fraud victim seeking damages for consequential loss of investment opportunity, the Court of Appeal has rejected an argument by the fraudster that the victim was obliged to give credit not only for the cash they received as part of the relevant fraudulent transactions, but also for the … Read more