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 ...
Ingrey v King & anr [2015] EWHC 2137 (Ch)
January/February 2016 #156This was an application by Mr Ingrey, the proving executor of the estate of John Henry King (the deceased) seeking direction in relation to the distribution of Mr King’s estate (the estate). The defendant, Ashley King, is the deceased’s son and sole beneficiary of the estate following the compromise of a claim brought under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 by the deceased’s widow and two young children.
The estate was sworn for probate with a gross value of c.£9.6m and a net value of c.£3.5m. The assets in the estate included a share of a par...
Worthing & anr v Lloyds Bank plc [2015] EWHC 2836 (QB)
January/February 2016 #156The claimants had been customers of the defendant bank since 2000. Following the sale of their business in September 2006 for £5m, their bank manager arranged an introduction to the defendant’s Mayfair banking service, which was the division providing banking services to ultra-high-net-worth individuals for the purpose of receiving advice regarding the investment of the proceeds. The defendant sought information about the claimants’ financial circumstances and asked a series of questions designed to identify their appetite and capacity for risk. The defendant then produced a ...
Barnes v Phillips [2015] EWCA Civ 1056
January/February 2016 #15688 Leyland Road, London (property) was purchased by the parties in January 1996 for approximately £135,000 using approximately £25,000 from their savings for the deposit and taking out a joint repayment mortgage for the balance with HSBC. It was registered in their names as joint tenants. Both contributed to the cost of installing double glazing, resurfacing the driveway and landscaping the garden. The appellant, who had acquired other buy-to-let properties in his sole name, told the respondent in early 2005 that he wanted to remortgage the property because of debt problems. The property...
Barnett v Creggy [2014] EWHC 3080 (Ch)
January/February 2016 #156This was a claim for an account and associated enquiries and for equitable compensation brought by Jeffrey and Peter Barnett (the claimants) against their former solicitor Stuart Creggy (Mr Creggy). The claimants were entrepreneurs in the restaurant business. Mr Creggy’s practice consisted of establishing offshore companies for clients and providing services to those clients in respect of depositing, investing and withdrawing funds held in those companies. Mr Creggy ceased to be a solicitor in 1998, but continued to provide those services until 2002.
The claimants were clien...
Bellis v Challinor [2015] EWCA Civ 59
January/February 2016 #156The 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 ...
Bowring & anr v HMRC [2015] UKUT 550 (TCC)
January/February 2016 #156The appellants (CB and JB) brought an appeal against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) on 25 June 2013 in which it dismissed the appellants’ appeals against closure notices by HMRC containing amendments to the appellants’ self-assessment tax returns for 2002-03. The effect of the amendments was that the appellants were liable to capital gains tax (CGT) of £849,644 and £317,417 respectively of additional gains under s87 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (TCGA) and supplemental charges under TCGA, s91.
In 1969, the ap...