The plaintiff sought to enforce payment of a judgment in his favour against the defendant (the Severo Sibirsko Bureau) by service of a garnishee order nisi on the Bureau’s bank, the Bank for Russian Trade. The order was served less than an hour after the bank had received an instruction from the Bureau to close its account and transfer the entire credit balance to the account of the Soviet trade delegation in London, which was held at the same bank. The trade delegation had the benefit of diplomatic immunity from suit.
Held: The transfer instruction was still revocable when the order was received by the Bank for Russian Trade. All that had happened was that the bank had made entries in its books to close the Bureau’s account. It had not yet credited the Soviet trade delegation’s account and the trade delegation did not know of the proposed transfer. The garnishee order was held to operate as a revocation of that instruction: ‘ . . the effect of the service of garnishee order nisi is, according to Lord Watson in Rogers v Whiteley, to make the garnishee ‘custodier’ for the court of the whole funds attached.’
Citations:
[1933] 1 KB 47, [1932] All ER 534
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Taurus Petroleum Limited v State Oil Marketing Company of The Ministry of Oil, Republic of Iraq SC 25-Oct-2017
The parties disputed their contract arrangements. It was referred to an arbitration in London, but applying Iraqi law. The respondent failed to meet the award made against it, and the claimant sought to enforce the award here by means of third party . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 01 October 2022; Ref: scu.646121