![]() |
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] [DONATE] | |||||||||
United Kingdom Supreme Court |
||||||||||
PLEASE SUPPORT BAILII & FREE ACCESS TO LAW
To maintain its current level of service, BAILII urgently needs the support of its users.
Since you use the site, please consider making a donation to celebrate BAILII's 25 years of providing free access to law. No contribution is too small. If every visitor this month gives just £5, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing this vital service.
Thank you for your support! | ||||||||||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Supreme Court >> Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd & Ors [2013] UKSC 34 (12 June 2013) URL: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2013/34.html Cite as: [2013] 2 AC 415, [2013] Fam Law 953, [2013] BCC 571, [2013] WLR(D) 237, [2013] WTLR 1249, [2013] 3 WLR 1, [2014] 1 BCLC 30, [2013] 4 All ER 673, [2013] 3 FCR 210, [2013] 2 FLR 732, [2013] UKSC 34 |
[New search] [Printable PDF version] [Buy ICLR report: [2013] 2 AC 415] [Buy ICLR report: [2013] 3 WLR 1] [View ICLR summary: [2013] WLR(D) 237] [Help]
Trinty Term
[2013] UKSC 34
On appeal from: [2012] EWCA Civ 1395
JUDGMENT
Prest (Appellant) v Petrodel Resources Limited and others (Respondents)
before
Lord Neuberger, President
Lord Walker
Lady Hale
Lord Mance
Lord Clarke
Lord Wilson
Lord Sumption
JUDGMENT GIVEN ON
12 June 2013
Heard on 5 and 6 March 2013
Appellant Richard Todd QC Daniel Lightman Stephen Trowell (Instructed by Farrer & Co) |
Respondent Tim Amos QC Oliver Wise Ben Shaw Amy Kisser (Instructed by Jeffrey Green Russell Ltd) |
LORD SUMPTION
Introduction
The issues
"no shareholder has any right to any item of property owned by the company, for he has no legal or equitable interest therein. He is entitled to a share in the profits while the company continues to carry on business and a share in the distribution of the surplus assets when the company is wound up."
In Lonrho Ltd v Shell Petroleum Co Ltd [1980] 1 WLR 627 the House of Lords held that documents of a subsidiary were not in the "power" of its parent company for the purposes of disclosure in litigation, simply by virtue of the latter's ownership and control of the group. These principles are the starting point for the elaborate restrictions imposed by English law on a wide range of transactions which have the direct or indirect effect of distributing capital to shareholders. The separate personality and property of a company is sometimes described as a fiction, and in a sense it is. But the fiction is the whole foundation of English company and insolvency law. As Robert Goff LJ once observed, in this domain "we are concerned not with economics but with law. The distinction between the two is, in law, fundamental": Bank of Tokyo Ltd v Karoon (Note) [1987] AC 45, 64. He could justly have added that it is not just legally but economically fundamental, since limited companies have been the principal unit of commercial life for more than a century. Their separate personality and property are the basis on which third parties are entitled to deal with them and commonly do deal with them.
(1) It might be said that this is a case in which, exceptionally, a court is at liberty to disregard the corporate veil in order to give effective relief.
(2) Section 24 of the Matrimonial Causes Act might be regarded as conferring a distinct power to disregard the corporate veil in matrimonial cases.
(3) The companies might be regarded as holding the properties on trust for the husband, not by virtue of his status as their sole shareholder and controller, but in the particular circumstances of this case.
The judge's findings: the companies
Piercing the corporate veil
"No court in this land will allow a person to keep an advantage which he has obtained by fraud. No judgment of a court, no order of a Minister, can be allowed to stand if it has been obtained by fraud. Fraud unravels everything. The court is careful not to find fraud unless it is distinctly pleaded and proved; but once it is proved, it vitiates judgments, contracts and all transactions whatsoever…"
The principle is mainly familiar in the context of contracts and other consensual arrangements, in which the effect of fraud is to vitiate consent so that the transaction becomes voidable ab initio. But it has been applied altogether more generally, in cases which can be rationalised only on grounds of public policy, for example to justify setting aside a public act such as a judgment, which is in no sense consensual, a jurisdiction which has existed since at least 1775: Duchess of Kingston's Case (1776) 2 Smith's LC, 13th ed, 644, 646, 651, 168 EngR 175. Or to abrogate a right derived from a legal status, such as marriage: R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex p Puttick [1981] QB 767. Or to disapply a statutory time bar which on the face of the statute applies: Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2011] 2 AC 304. These decisions (and there are others) illustrate a broader principle governing cases in which the benefit of some apparently absolute legal principle has been obtained by dishonesty. The authorities show that there are limited circumstances in which the law treats the use of a company as a means of evading the law as dishonest for this purpose.
"the court is not free to disregard the principle of Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd [1897] AC 22 merely because it considers that justice so requires. Our law, for better or worse, recognises the creation of subsidiary companies, which though in one sense the creatures of their parent companies, will nevertheless under the general law fall to be treated as separate legal entities with all the rights and liabilities which would normally attach to separate legal entities."
"In this sense, and to this limited extent, the typical case in the Family Division may differ from the typical case in (say) the Chancery Division. But what it is important to appreciate (and too often, I fear, is not appreciated at least in this division) is that the relevant legal principles which have to be applied are precisely the same in this division as in the other two divisions. There is not one law of 'sham' in the Chancery Division and another law of 'sham' in the Family Division. There is only one law of 'sham', to be applied equally in all three Divisions of the High Court, just as there is but one set of principles, again equally applicable in all three divisions, determining whether or not it is appropriate to 'pierce the corporate veil'".
Section 24(1)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973
Beneficial ownership of the properties
"The appellants, who are a public corporation, elected to call no witnesses, thus depriving the court of any positive evidence as to whether the condition of the fence and the adjacent terrain had been noticed by any particular servant of theirs or as to what he or any other of their servants either thought or did about it. This is a legitimate tactical move under our adversarial system of litigation. But a defendant who adopts it cannot complain if the court draws from the facts which have been disclosed all reasonable inferences as to what are the facts which the defendant has chosen to withhold. A court may take judicial notice that railway lines are regularly patrolled by linesmen and Bangers. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is entitled to infer that one or more of them in the course of several weeks noticed what was plain for all to see. Anyone of common sense would realise the danger that the state of the fence so close to the live rail created for little children coming to the meadow to play. As the appellants elected to call none of the persons who patrolled the line there is nothing to rebut the inference that they did not lack the common sense to realise the danger. A court is accordingly entitled to infer from the inaction of the appellants that one or more of their employees decided to allow the risk to continue of some child crossing the boundary and being injured or killed by the live rail rather than to incur the trivial trouble and expense of repairing the gap in the fence."
The courts have tended to recoil from some of the fiercer parts of this statement, which appear to convert open-ended speculation into findings of fact. There must be a reasonable basis for some hypothesis in the evidence or the inherent probabilities, before a court can draw useful inferences from a party's failure to rebut it. For my part I would adopt, with a modification which I shall come to, the more balanced view expressed by Lord Lowry with the support of the rest of the committee in R v Inland Revenue Commissioners, Ex p TC Coombs & Co [1991] 2 AC 283, 300:
"In our legal system generally, the silence of one party in face of the other party's evidence may convert that evidence into proof in relation to matters which are, or are likely to be, within the knowledge of the silent party and about which that party could be expected to give evidence. Thus, depending on the circumstances, a prima facie case may become a strong or even an overwhelming case. But, if the silent party's failure to give evidence (or to give the necessary evidence) can be credibly explained, even if not entirely justified, the effect of his silence in favour of the other party may be either reduced or nullified."
Cf. Wisniewski v Central Manchester Health Authority [1998] PIQR 324, 340.
December 1995 Flat 4, 27 Abbey Road was transferred to PRL by the husband for £1. It had been bought by him in 1991, before the marriage and before the incorporation of PRL. There are two charges on the property, in favour of Ahli United Bank and BNP Paribas, apparently to secure loans made to PRL. Neither the husband nor PRL has complied with orders to disclose the loan agreement and related documents.
Flat 5, 27 Abbey Road was transferred to PRL on the same day, also for £1, by the husband's younger brother Michel. It had been bought in March of that year for £48,650 in Michel's name. The wife's evidence was that, at the time, Michel was a student in London with no substantial assets of his own who was being supported by her husband. She said that her husband had led her to believe that he had paid for it.
March 1996 Flat 2, 143 Ashmore Road, is a leasehold property transferred to PRL for £1 by the wife. It had originally been bought by the husband in November 1992 in the name of someone called Jimmy Lawrence. There is no information about Jimmy Lawrence or the reasons for his involvement. According to the husband's evidence, the purchase money came from PRL, but since PRL was not incorporated until six months after that, this cannot be correct. At some stage, it is unclear when or how, the lease was transferred into the name of the wife, and she must have signed the transfer when it was conveyed to PRL, but she had no recollection of being involved or of ever having owned it.
1998 The wife transferred her interest in the freehold of 143 Ashmore Street to PRL. The freehold had originally been bought in 1996 in the name of the wife and one Esta Blechman, who was the leasehold owner of another flat in the building. There is no information about the consideration paid either in 1996 or in 1998. The husband's evidence was the funds to buy the wife's interest in 1996 came from PRL.
August 2000 Flat 6, 62-64 Beethoven Street was transferred to PRL by the husband for £85,000. He had originally bought it in 1988 (before the marriage) for £70,500. The property is charged to secure the loans made by Ahli United Bank and BNP Paribas.
May 2001 The matrimonial home, 16 Warwick Avenue, was bought in the name of PRL for £1.4 million and subsequently refurbished at a cost of about £1 million. The judge rejected the husband's evidence that the purchase price and refurbishment costs were funded by PRL, because at that stage the company had not commenced trading operations. He found that they were funded from bonuses earned by the husband, presumably, at this stage, from his last employer before he set up on his own. The judge found that PRL had always held this property on trust for the husband and that conclusion is not challenged on this appeal. The property is charged to secure the loans made by Ahli United Bank and BNP Paribas. In accordance with the judge's order PRL has now conveyed it to the wife, but subject to the charges.
July 2001 Flat 310, Pavilion Apartments was bought in the name of Vermont for £635,000. The judge found that the money was derived from PRL.
January 2004 11, South Lodge, Circus Road, was bought in the name of Vermont for £700,000. The judge found that the purchase price was also derived from PRL. The property is charged to secure the loans made to Ahli United Bank and BNP Paribas.
The judge recorded the wife's evidence that the husband had once advised her that if anything were to happen to him, she should sell all the properties, move to Nevis and use the proceeds of sale to meet her living expenses there.
Nuptial settlement
Terms for permission to appeal
Conclusion
LORD NEUBERGER
i. The decision of the International Court of Justice in In re Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Co, Ltd [1970] ICJ 3 recognises the doctrine; however, that is in the context of a civil law system which includes the principle of abuse of rights, and begs the question whether, in a common law system, the doctrine should be applicable by the courts in the absence of specific legislative sanction;
ii. There are judgments in family cases based on obiter dicta in Nicholas v Nicholas [1984] FLR 285 (eg the judgments of Thorpe LJ in this case and of Mostyn J in Kremen v Agrest (No 2) [2011] 2 FLR 490), where the doctrine has been treated as valid and applicable; but the application of the doctrine, even if it exists, in these cases is unsound, as Munby J effectively (in both senses of the word) indicated in A v A [2007] 2 FLR 467 and Ben Hashem [2009] 1 FLR 115;
iii. There are two cases outside the family law context which laid the ground for the establishment of the doctrine, namely the decisions of the Court of Appeal in Gilford Motor Co Ltd v Horne [1933] Ch 935, and of Russell J in Jones v Lipman [1962] 1 WLR 832;
iv. There are two subsequent decisions, one of the House of Lords, Woolfson v Strathclyde Regional Council 1978 SC(HL) 90, the other of the Court of Appeal, Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433, in which it was assumed or accepted that the doctrine existed, but they cannot amount to more than obiter observations, as in neither of them did the doctrine apply;
v. In subsequent cases in the Court of Appeal and High Court, it has been (unsurprisingly) assumed that the doctrine does apply, two recent examples being the Court of Appeal decisions in VTB [2012] 2 Lloyd's Rep 313 and Alliance Bank JSC v Aquanta Corpn [2013] 1 Lloyd's Rep 175;
vi. However, in only two of those subsequent cases (the first instance decisions in Gencor ACP Ltd v Dalby [2000] 2 BCLC 734 and Trustor AB v Smallbone (No 2) [2001] 1 WLR 1177) has the doctrine actually been relied on, and they each could have been decided the same way without recourse to the doctrine, and therefore involved illegitimate applications of the doctrine on any view (see para 62 above).
"were just the puppets of Dr Wallersteiner. … Transformed into legal language, they were his agents to do as he commanded. He was the principal behind them. … At any rate, it was up to him to show that any one else had a say in their affairs and he never did so: cf Gilford".
i. Decisions in which it was assumed that the doctrine existed, but it was rightly concluded that it did not apply on the facts;
ii. Decisions in which it was assumed that the doctrine existed, and it was wrongly concluded that it applied on the facts;
iii. Decisions in which it was assumed that the doctrine existed and it was applied to the facts, but where the result could have been arrived at on some other, conventional, legal basis, and therefore it was wrongly concluded that it applied (see para 62 above).
(The doctrine has been invoked in cases not considered by Lord Sumption, but they take matters no further – see the decisions mentioned and briefly considered in VTB [2013] 2 WLR 398, paras 125 and 127).
LADY HALE (with whom Lord Wilson agrees)
LORD MANCE
"The alternative way in which Hemisphere puts its case is to submit that, if Gécamines is otherwise accepted as a separate juridical entity, the facts found justify the lifting of the corporate veil to enable Hemisphere to pursue Gécamines as well as the State. In the Board's view, this involves a misapplication of any principles upon which the corporate veil may be lifted under domestic and international law. Assuming for the sake of argument that the 'unceremonious' subjecting of Gécamines to the controlling will of the state involved a breach by the State of its duty to respect Gécamines as a separate entity, that might conceivably justify an affected third party, possibly even an aggrieved general creditor of Gécamines, in suggesting that the corporate veil should be lifted to make the State, which had deprived Gécamines of assets, liable for Gécamines' debts. The Board need express no further view on that possibility. It represents the inverse of the present situation. There is no basis for treating the State's taking or Gécamines' use of Gécamines' assets for State purposes, at which Hemisphere directs vigorous criticism, as a justification for imposing on Gécamines yet further and far larger burdens in the form of responsibility for the whole of the debts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In international law as in domestic law, lifting the corporate veil must be a tailored remedy, fitted to the circumstances giving rise [to] it."
LORD CLARKE
LORD WALKER