Byers & ors v Saudi National Bank [2024] WTLR 443
Summer 2024 #195The third claimant (SICL) was a company registered in the Cayman Islands. By transactions which took place between 2002 and 2008 Mr Al-Sanea came to hold shares in five Saudi Arabian companies (the disputed securities) under trusts governed by Cayman Islands law for the benefit of SICL. Cayman and English trust law were the same so far as was relevant to this appeal.
The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands made a winding-up order against SICL on 18 September 2009 pursuant to a petition presented on 30 July 2009. The first and second claimants were appointed as SICL’s joint liquidato...
Guest & anr v Guest [2023] WTLR 431
Summer 2023 #191A father made repeated promises to his son that he would inherit an undefined part of a farm, sufficient to enable him to operate a viable farming business on it, after the death of his parents. Relying on that promise, the son spent the best part of his working life on the farm, working at very low wages and accommodated in a farm cottage. After a deterioration in the relationship between the father and son, it proved no longer possible for the two to work together, and the son therefore moved out, and the father cut him out of his will.
The son claimed an interest in the farm as...
Equity Trust (Jersey) Ltd v Halabi [2022] WTLR 55
Spring 2023 #190The Privy Council determined appeals from the Jersey Court of Appeal (the Jersey appeal) and from the Guernsey Court of Appeal (the Guernsey appeal) concerning the rights of indemnity of successive trustees against the assets of trusts governed by Jersey law, whose assets were insufficient to meet in full the liabilities incurred by their trustees.
The Jersey appeal
The original sole trustee of two Jersey trusts settled by the late Madam Intisar Nouri was Equity Trust (Jersey) Ltd (Equity Trust). Equity Trust was later replaced as sole trustee by Volaw Corporate Trustee L...
Prickly Bay Waterside Ltd v British American Insurance Company Ltd [2022] WTLR 1115
Autumn 2022 #188Prickly Bay was engaged in the development of houses and apartments at L’Ance Aux Epines, St George, Grenada. Its principal director was Richard Lee, husband of Rosa Lee. Two adjacent properties were owned by a Mr Steele. Following a dispute between Prickly Bay and Mr Steele a consent order was entered into providing that Prickly Bay would purchase the adjacent properties for US$5m. It was a term of the consent order that Prickly Bay would provide a bank guarantee for US$2.25m. The respondent, BAICO, gave the guarantee.
Mr and Mrs Lee, and Prickly Bay, entered into a loan agreemen...
Rittson-Thomas & ors v Oxfordshire County Council [2021] WTLR 679
Summer 2021 #183The appeal concerned Nettlebed School in Oxfordshire. In 1914 and 1928, Mr Robert Fleming conveyed land to Oxfordshire County Council (the council) under the School Sites Act 1841 (SSA 1841). The benefactions enabled a new school building to be built. The school operated on the site until 2006. In the 1990s, the council decided to relocate the school to a new building with improved facilities on other land owned by the council (adjacent to the old site), and the pupils moved to the new building in February 2006. The council’s plan was to sell the old site to pay o...