Private Law Theory

The recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the long-running case, now known as Byers v Saudi National Bank, concerned a misapplication of trust property. The recipient of that property (Samba) did not dispute that its state of knowledge was sufficient in principle to satisfy the requirement for knowing receipt liability, namely that the Defendant’s knowledge was such as to make it unconscionable for it to retain the benefit of the receipt. The question facing the Court of Appeal was whether this of itself was adequate for knowing receipt liability. In answering this the Court noted the once widely held view that knowing receipt liability should be subsumed into the fault-based test for restitutionary liability …

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Toby Graham and David Russell, A denial of property rights: knowing receipt and Byers v Saudi National Bank, Trusts and Trustees, volume 29, issue 4, May 2023, pages 293-298. Published: 10 May 2023.