The claimant’s mother settled a trust by way of a trust deed dated 29 April 1985. The trust was originally a discretionary trust with the claimant and his mother as trustees and a wide class of beneficiaries. The only asset of the trust was the family home in Surrey (the property). The trust was a discretionary trust during the claimant’s mother’s lifetime, with an absolute trust in favour of the claimant on her death. By a deed dated 30 June 2008, the first defendant (the claimant’s cousin) and the second defendant (a solicitor) were appointed as trustees.
The claimant’s mother d...
The parties, who were brothers, held two periodic tenancies as joint tenants: an agricultural tenancy and a commercial tenancy of land at Fir Tree Farm protected respectively under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The appellant and a company of which he and his wife were sole directors and shareholders, F N Pile and Sons Ltd, entered into an agreement with the landlord (the agreement) under which he would serve a notice to quit the agricultural tenancy, the landlord would serve a notice to terminate the commercial tenancy in respe...
The case concerned various agreements (including a sale purchase agreement, a headstay agreement and an alleged oral agreement) transacted between the claimants and the defendant (among others) in connection with a business venture. It was alleged that the oral agreement obliged the defendant to redevelop, restructure, manage and/or dispose of assets within a hotel portfolio in order to maximise the financial benefit realised from such assets, and then to pay a share of the net financial benefit from such activity to the claimants. The true intention behind the oral agreement was a matte...
C and D1-D4 were the children of Mrs Veronica Cadogan (VC), who died in 2011. VC’s will left her residuary estate to them in equal shares. In 2013, C and D1 took letters of administration with the will annexed. They remained as administrators until they were replaced by D5 at the first case management hearing in the proceedings.
VC’s estate included 14 English properties. Following her death, each of C and D1-D4 had informally taken over or remained in control of one or more properties and either occupied or received rent from them. This continued during the period of ...
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This was an appeal against summary judgment on a claim for equitable compensation for £13,149,479 plus interest at 2.5% pa compounded annually.
A was a director of R. A and his sister (Ms Patel) had founded R and had been sole directors and (directly and indirectly) owned all of the shares. Between 2009 and 2014, A had caused R to pay £13,763,452 against sham invoices to Dubai companies. The Dubai companies had retained 5-10% of the invoiced sums and paid the balance to A (and Ms Patel’s) personal bank accounts, to them in cash, and to third parties for the purchase of a New York ...
These appeals arose from the a ‘brazen fraud’ by which Allseas Group SA was defrauded of €100 million. After the fraud took place, there was an attempt to launder the proceeds through the client account of a London firm of solicitors, Notable Services LLP, whose partners included Mr Landman. Police intervention secured the return of €88 million – the present proceedings concerned attempts to recover the remainder of this sum from Notable, Mr Landman, Mr Louanjli (a bank employee who provided information to Notable) and LLB Verwaltung, the bank who employed him (”the Bank”).
In add...
Following judgment upholding claims for various breaches of trust (Sheffield v Sheffield & ors [2014] WTLR 1039, [2013] EWHC 3927 (Ch)), the judge ordered accounts, on the footing of wilful default, and inquiries consequent upon the judgment. The accounting parties were the executors of (and standing in the shoes of) a defaulting trustee (“A”) and the individual who benefited from the breaches of trust (“B”). Agreement was reached in respect of certain accounts and the claimant (“C”) pursued other accounts and inquiries, in respect of various issues. The judge also ordered t...
Continue reading "Breach of trust: Who bears the loss?"