Where a lender has the absolute discretion to do something under a loan, their position will be protected according to the recent High Court decision in UBS AG v Rose Capital Ventures Limited, Dr Vijay Mallya, Mrs Lalitha Mallya, Mr Sidartha Vijay Mallya [2018] EWHC 3137 (Ch). The Court provided some comfort to secured (and … Continue Reading
The recent High Court decision in Lonsdale v. National Westminster Bank plc [2018] EWHC 1842 (QB) serves to highlight that the content of a suspicious activity report (“SAR”) could be discloseable to an opponent in Court proceedings. Not only that – it could also form the basis of a claim in defamation.… Continue Reading
The recent High Court decision in Caribonum Pension Trustee Limited v Pelikan Hardcopy Production AG [2018] EWHC 2321 (Ch) will provide some comfort for pension plan trustees owed money by insolvent sponsoring employers by allowing trustees to pursue guarantors within the same group for those debts. What was contended to be an abuse of Court process … Continue Reading
The Court of Appeal in Deutsche Bank AG v Comune di Savona [2018] EWCA 1740 has clarified the position as regards competing jurisdiction clauses, particularly when considering swaps and derivatives and The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA”) model agreements.… Continue Reading
Background A recent interim hearing in the Commercial Court in BNP Paribas SA v Trattamento Rifiuti Metropolitani SPA [2018] EWHC 1670 (Comm) concerned the determination of jurisdiction where one party asserts that a dispute falls under the jurisdiction of the English Court under a standard form International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA“) documentation, and the … Continue Reading
Introduction In Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc. v National Power Corporation and another [2018], the Commercial Court was tasked with evaluating the mechanism for calculating “close-out amounts” in transactions for derivatives under the 2002 International Swaps and Derivatives Association Master Agreement (“2002 ISDA”). The 2002 ISDA is a standard market agreement used to set out the … Continue Reading
Last month the Supreme Court decided, on an appeal from the Scottish Inner House of Court of Session, that a borrower’s solicitors did not assume responsibility for, and thereby owe a duty of care to, the other side (the financier) in a commercial transaction.… Continue Reading
Over 25 years ago, the case of Barclays Bank Plc v Quincecare [1992] 4 All ER 363 established that a bank owes a duty of care to both its customer and third parties to protect against fraud. In summary, a bank will be liable if it has reasonable grounds for believing that a payment it … Continue Reading
In recent judicial review (“JR“) proceedings, R (on the application of Kelly ) (Claimants) v Financial Ombudsman Service & Shawbrook Bank (Interested Party) (2017), the High Court quashed a Financial Ombudsman Service (“FOS”) decision to dismiss a husband and wife’s complaint involving a lender and the interested party bank (“IPB”). The Court decided that the FOS had misunderstood the nature … Continue Reading
The Court has recently handed down judgment in Abdullah and others v Credit Suisse (UK) Limited and Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Limited, a case concerning the suitability of structured product sales .… Continue Reading
It has recently been reported that the European Commission carried out a series of dawn raids at the premises of a number of entities involved in the banking sector “in a few” EU member states including, reportedly, the Polish and Dutch Banking Associations. The raids related to the alleged delay by banks providing data requested … Continue Reading
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Taurus Petroleum Ltd (Appellant) v State Oil Marketing Company of the Ministry of Oil, Republic of Iraq (Respondent) [2017] clarifies where a debt is situated under a letter of credit (“LoC”). … Continue Reading
Further to our recent blog posts regarding the long running litigation, last week the Supreme Court ordered that permission to appeal be granted to the Claimants in MasterCard Incorporated and others (Respondents) v Deutsche Bahn AG and others (Appellants) – UKSC 2017/0095. The appeal concerns prospective amendments to the Claimants’ case in the litigation which would introduce new claims … Continue Reading
On 6 October 2017, the Court of Appeal ruled that an investor with an interest in promissory notes cannot sue the issuing bank for allegedly making misleading statements about those promissory notes. There was no contractual relationship; only the bearer of the promissory notes could sue the issuer for breach of contract.… Continue Reading
As discussed in a previous blog (3 May 2017), consumers seeking compensation in relation to any new payment protection insurance (“PPI“) complaint will now have until 29 August 2019 to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service about any alleged mis-selling by lenders. The Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA“) has announced the final deadline in an attempt to draw … Continue Reading
Background The Court of Appeal has this week handed down judgment in three linked appeals (CGL Group and Others v Royal Bank of Scotland Plc and Others). These concerned interest rate hedging products (“Hedging Products“) that certain smaller businesses (including the Appellants) allege they were required to buy as a condition of loans made to them by three banks (in … Continue Reading
Claims’ Management Companies (“CMCs”) offer legal claims and complaint management services to members of the public. Historically, CMCs work to bring large numbers of complaints against financial services companies and recent areas of focus have been PPI and interest rate hedging mis-selling complaints. Whilst some CMCs are reputable, others try to rally business through unsolicited calls/texts … Continue Reading
On 4 July 2017, the Prudential Regulation Authority (“PRA”) released a statement on consumer credit (“Statement”), following a review of consumer credit lending (“PRA Review”). The review included the examination of PRA regulated firms’ underwriting practices for credit cards, unsecured personal loans and motor finance. As readers will be aware, there has been a good deal … Continue Reading
The UK Government appears for the time being at least to have scrapped plans to merge the Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) with the National Crime Agency (“NCA”). The controversial proposal to abolish the SFO did not feature in the Queen’s Speech, suggesting that it has been put on the back burner following the failure of Prime Minister … Continue Reading
In a previous blog post, we discussed how the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA“) was backing a call by the banks for the introduction of a two year cut-off for PPI claims. Deadline The FCA has now announced that the final deadline for making a new PPI complaint will be 29 August 2019. Andrew Bailey (Chief … Continue Reading
Financial institutions often receive a subject access request made under the Data Protection Act 1998 (“SAR”) from individual customers as pre-cursor to a formal complaint or a legal claim. That is because a SAR enables the customer to access a significant amount of information held by the organisation about him or her. A customer can … Continue Reading
AIG Europe Limited v Woodman and others [2017] UKSC 18 Supreme Court clarifies the correct interpretation of the aggregation clause contained in the Solicitors’ Minimum Terms and Conditions of Insurance (“MTC”) in what will be considered a partial victory for insurers.… Continue Reading
The recent case of R (Aviva Life and Pensions) v Financial Ombudsman Service discusses and reaffirms the position that the Financial Ombudsman is not bound to follow the law when making its determinations but must instead make decisions that are “fair and reasonable in all the circumstances”. This reaffirms the Court of Appeal decision in R (Heather Moor … Continue Reading
