Colleagues might be interested in a judgment released last week by the Royal Court of Jersey: Federal Republic of Brazil and the Municipality of Sao Paulo v Durant International Corporation and Kildare
Finance Limited, [2012] JRC 211, available in the Brazilian press at
and also via
In this lengthy judgment, the plaintiffs secured a $10.5 million proprietary award in relation to the proceeds of construction kickbacks. The court declared a constructive trust even though the corrupt
profits were received in a civilian jurisdiction. In obiter dicta (para 184), the court preferred
AG Hong Kong v Reid to Sinclair Investments v. Versailles. It went on to reject (para 198) the argument that there is a distinction between tracing at common law and tracing in
equity. With reference to the writings of Conaglen, Burrows, and others, the court also accepted (paras 217ff) the validity of backwards tracing in concluding that the plaintiffs had established their claim.
Lionel
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