Bellis v Challinor [2015] EWCA Civ 59

January/February 2016 #156

The case concerned a property investment scheme relating to land at and around an airport known as Fairoaks (the Fairoaks scheme). The Fairoaks scheme was the last in a substantial series of schemes (the Albemarle schemes) which, prior to the Fairoaks scheme, were unregulated collective investment schemes promoted by Egan Lawson (later ECS after its takeover by Erinaceous Group PLC (Erinaceous)) involving investment through a single purpose vehicle (SPV). The underlying subject matter of each scheme consisted of either commercial or development property or a mixture of both. The schemes ...

Cotton & anr v Earl of Cardigan & ors [2014] EWCA Civ 1312

January/February 2015 #146

The claimants were the present trustees of the Savernake Estate, the principal asset of which was a grade I listed house known as Tottenham House together with a dilapidated grade II listed stable block (together Tottenham House). Unoccupied since the 1990s and decaying fast, it was proposed to sell Tottenham House not least because of the need to repay significant borrowing from the bank. There was no dispute as to the trustees’ decision to sell; what was disputed was the process by which that sale should be achieved. The beneficiaries of the trust were the first defendant (Lord C...

Novoship (UK) Limited & ors v Nikitin & ors [2014] EWCA Civ 908

November 2014 #144

Mr Mikhaylyuk (M), a manager for the first respondent, NOUK, with responsibility for negotiating the charters of vessels owned by companies within the Novoship group, the remaining respondents, owed fiduciary duties to all the respondents. M had arranged a series of schemes by which he defrauded his principals and enriched himself and others by the payment of bribes given to him by those who chartered his principals’ vessels. These schemes included one concerning vessels chartered to companies owned and controlled by Mr Ruperti (R) which R then sub-chartered at substantially higher rates...