The master of the Othello, anchored off the coast of West Africa, was held to be liable in tort for depriving a rival British ship of trade by the expedient of using his cannon to drive away a canoe which was approaching from the shore: ‘that an action on the case lay against the master of a vessel for purposely firing a cannon at [traders] and thereby preventing them from trading with the plaintiff’. That was done purposely in the sense of ‘contriving and maliciously intending to hinder and deter (them) from trading’
Lord Kenyon
(1790) 1 Peake NPC 270
Commonwealth
Cited by:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.251729