Akers & ors v Samba [2017] UKSC 6
Summer 2017 #168Mr Al-Sanea was the legal owner of shares in five Saudi Arabian banks, including Samba Financial Group (appellant). As a result of six transactions between 2002 and 2008 Mr Al-Sanea agreed to hold the relevant shares in trust for Saad Investments Co Ltd (SICL), a company subject to the laws of the Cayman Islands. Compulsory winding up proceedings of SICL commenced on 30 June 2009 and, six weeks later, Mr Al-Sanea in breach of trust transferred the legal title to the relevant shares to the appellant, purporting thereby to discharge personal liabilities which he had towards it. On 19 Augus...
Credit Agricole v Papadimitriou [2015] UKPC 13
January/February 2016 #156In 2000 Mr Robin Symes, an art dealer, sold for US$15m a collection of art deco furniture belonging to the respondent. The respondent did not give her consent to the sale, and Mr Symes had no right to sell the collection. US$10.4m of the sale price was paid to a Panamanian company, Tradesk Limited. Of this, US$10.3m was then paid into an account at the appellant bank through a Liechtenstein foundation called Pataco Foundation. The monies were deposited in the Gibraltar branch of the appellant and credited to the account of Lombardi Corporation, which was a British Virgin Islands company ...
Brazil v Durant [2015] UKPC 35
October 2015 # 153The effective plaintiff was the municipality of Sao Paulo (the municipality). The Federal Republic of Brazil was nominally the plaintiff because its constitution required it to be a party to any action brought outside Brazil by a Brazilian public authority. The defendants were companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (the companies) which were, at the relevant time, under the practical control of Mr Paulo Maluf and/or his son Mr Flavio Maluf. From 1993 Mr Paulo Maluf had been mayor of the municipality.
The case concerned payments made to Mr Paulo Maluf, or others on his ...
AIB Group (UK) Plc v Mark Redler & Co Solicitors [2014] UKSC 58
March 2015 #147The appellant bank instructed the respondent solicitors to act in relation to a £3.3m re-mortgage on behalf of themselves and the borrowers. The borrowers’ property (the property) was already subject to a first charge in favour of Barclays. A part of the respondent’s instructions was to redeem the outstanding Barclays mortgage and to secure a first charge against the property in the appellant’s favour.
Due to an oversight, the respondents paid only £1,23m of the outstanding £1.5m Barclays loan and then transferred the balance to the borrowers. Having realised their error, the resp...
FHR European Ventures LLP & ors v Cedar Capital Partners LLC [2014] UKSC 45
September 2014 #142The claimants engaged Cedar Capital Partners LLC (Cedar) to act as their agent in negotiating the purchase by FHR European Ventures LLP of the issued share capital of Monte Carlo Grand Hotel SAM (which owned a long leasehold interest in the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel) from Monte Carlo Grand Hotel Ltd (vendor). As such an agent, Cedar owed a fiduciary duty to the claimants, notwithstanding which it entered into an exclusive brokerage agreement with the vendor to provide for the payment of a €10m fee following completion – the vendor was paid €211.5m when the purchase was completed on 2...