swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases. Â
Financial Services - From: 1995 To: 1995
This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 20 May 2019.
ÂEuropean Consulting Unternehemensberatung Aktiengesellschaft v Refco Overseas Ltd Unreported, 12 April 1995
12 Apr 1995
ComC
Clarke J
Contract, Financial Services
cw Contract - breach of contract - futures and options trading - entitlement to close contracts - consideration
Â
Regina v Securities and Investment Board and Another; Ex Parte Independent Financial Adviser's Association Times, 18 May 1995
18 May 1995
QBD
Financial Services
The Security and Investment Board's requirement for IFA's to self assess their own breaches of their professional rules was lawful and proper.
Â
Century Life Plc v Pensions Ombudsman; Britannia Life Ltd v Same Times, 23 May 1995
23 May 1995
QBD
Financial Services
Ombudsman has jurisdiction to investigate acts of pensions managers as trustees.
Pension Schemes Act 1993 146-1
Â
 Alpine Investments Bv v Minister Van Financien; ECJ 16-Jun-1995 - Times, 16 June 1995; Gazette, 29 November 1995; [1995] 2 CLMR 209
Â
Meridian Global Funds Management Asia Ltd v Securities Commission Gazette, 19 July 1995; Times, 29 June 1995; [1995] 2 AC 500; [1995] BCC 942; [1995] 3 All ER 918; [1995] UKPC 5; [1995] 3 WLR 413; [1995] 2 BCLC 116
26 Jun 1995
PC
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Keith of Kinkel, Lord Jauncev of Tullichettle, Lord Mustill, Lord Lloyd of Berwick
Financial Services, Vicarious Liability, Company
(New Zealand) The former managing director of Meridian used the company's funds to make it a substantial security holder but neither he nor anyone else gave the requisite statutory notice requiring every person who became a "substantial security holder" to give notice of his interest both to the company and to the Stock Exchange as soon as he knew he was a substantial security holder. The question was whether his acts or omissions were the acts or omission of the company so as to render the company liable to the statutory penalties. Held: The company was liable. It was a matter of construction in each situation to decide whether an employee's knowledge is to be imputed to his employer. It might be so imputed where this was necessary to make legislation effective.
Lord Hoffmann said that the rules for attributing the acts of a director to the company are primarily in its constitution, but "These primary rules of attribution are obviously not enough to enable a company to go out into the world and do business. Not every act on behalf of the company could be expected to be the subject of a resolution of the board or a unanimous decision of the shareholders. The company therefore builds upon the primary rules of attribution by using general rules of attribution which are equally available to natural persons, namely, the principles of agency. It will appoint servants and agents whose acts, by a combination of the general principles of agency and the company's primary rules of attribution, count as the acts of the company. And having done so, it will also make itself subject to the general rules by which liability for the acts of others can be attributed to natural persons, such as estoppel or ostensible authority in contract and vicarious liability or tort.
It is worth pausing at this stage to make what may seem an obvious point. Any statement about what a company has or has not done, or can or cannot do, is necessarily a reference to the rules of attribution (primary and general) as they apply to that company. Judges sometimes say that a company "as such" cannot do anything; it must act by servants or agents. This may seem an unexceptionable, even banal remark. And of course the meaning is usually perfectly clear. But a reference to a company "as such" might suggest that there is something out there called the company of which one can meaningfully say that it can or cannot do something. There is in fact no such thing as the company as such, no ding an sich, only the applicable rules. To say that a company cannot do something means only that there is no one whose doing of that act would, under the applicable rules of attribution, count as an act of the company.
The company's primary rules of attribution together with the general principles of agency, vicarious liability and so forth are usually sufficient to enable one to determine its rights and obligations. In exceptional cases, however, they will not provide an answer. This will be the case when a rule of law, either expressly or by implication, excludes attribution on the basis of the general principles of agency or vicarious liability. For example, a rule may be stated in language primarily applicable to a natural person and require some act or state of mind on the part of that person "himself" as opposed to his servants or agents. This is generally true of rules of the criminal law, which ordinarily impose liability only for the actus reus and mens rea of the defendant himself. How is such a rule to be applied to a company?
One possibility is that the court may come to the conclusion that the rule was not intended to apply to companies at all; for example, a law which created an offence for which the only penalty was community service. Another possibility is that the court might interpret the law as meaning that it could apply to a company only on the basis of its primary rules of attribution, i.e. if the act giving rise to liability was specifically authorised by a resolution of the board or an unanimous agreement of the shareholders. But there will be many cases in which neither of these solutions is satisfactory; in which the court considers that the law was intended to apply to companies and that, although it excludes ordinary vicarious liability, insistence on the primary rules of attribution would in practice defeat that intention. In such a case, the court must fashion a special rule of attribution for the particular substantive rule. This is always a matter of interpretation: given that it was intended to apply to a company, how was it intended to apply? Whose act (or knowledge, or state of mind) was for this purpose intended to count as the act etc. of the company? One finds the answer to this question by applying the usual canons of interpretation, taking into account the language of the rule (if it is a statute) and its content and policy."
Lord Hoffmann: ". . . their Lordships would wish to guard themselves against being understood to mean that whenever a servant of a company has authority to do an act on its behalf, knowledge of that act will for all purposes be attributed to the company. It is a question of construction in each case as to whether the particular rule requires that the knowledge that an act has been done, or the state of mind with which it was done, should be attributed to the company. Sometimes, as in In re Supply of Ready Mixed Concrete (No. 2) [1995] 1 A.C. 456 and this case, it will be appropriate….. On the other hand, the fact that a company's employee is authorised to drive a lorry does not in itself lead to the conclusion that if he kills someone by reckless driving, the company will be guilty of manslaughter. There is no inconsistency. Each is an example of an attribution rule for a particular purpose, tailored as it always must be to the terms and policies of the substantive rule."
1 Citers
[ Bailii ]
Â
 Regina v Investors Compensation Scheme Ltd, ex Parte Bowden and Another; HL 18-Jul-1995 - Times, 18 July 1995; Gazette, 31 August 1995; Independent, 21 July 1995; [1996] AC 261
Â
Regina v Securities and Investments Board and Another, Ex Parte Sun Life Assurance Society Plc Times, 09 October 1995; Independent, 05 October 1995
5 Oct 1995
QBD
Financial Services
Calls from SIB for contributions to compensation fund for default were proper. The section was intended to ensure sufficiency of compensation, not to limit the liability of practitioners.
Financial Services Act 1986 54(3)
Â