Mrs Elcombe accompanied her husband on a number of trips to Switzerland. Mr Elcombe was carrying money which was part of the proceeds of the Brinks-Mat gold bullion robbery. However, Mrs Elcombe did not know that. She thought that the money was the subject of a tax evasion exercise. Brink’s claimed against her that she was liable as a dishonest assistant in a breach of trust.
Held: Although Mrs Elcombe knew that her husband was engaged in a dishonest scheme (i.e. tax evasion) that was not enough. It had to be proved that she knew of the existence of the trust or, at least of the facts giving rise to the trust. A security guard was employed in a position of trust in which he possessed valuable information; and as a result owed a fiduciary duty to his employer not to divulge that information to anyone not entitled to it. But it could not have been suggested that a security guard owed his employer the full range of directors’ fiduciary duties.
Judges:
Rimer J
Citations:
[1999] CLC 133
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Ultraframe (UK) Ltd v Fielding and others ChD 27-Jul-2005
The parties had engaged in a bitter 95 day trial in which allegations of forgery, theft, false accounting, blackmail and arson. A company owning patents and other rights had become insolvent, and the real concern was the destination and ownership of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 07 December 2022; Ref: scu.230275