Restitution
front page

What's new?

Archive front page

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2007

2006

2008

2009

Many thanks to Andrew for bringing Becerra v Close Bros (Commercial Court, 25 June 1999) to our attention. I've put the full judgment on my website (http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/ restitution/restitution.htm), and no doubt it is available elsewhere too.

The case concerns the sale of William Hill (bookies) by a limited auction run by Close Bros (defendants). The claimant had the bright idea of inviting Nomura to bid (which hadn't occurred to anyone else), and talked Nomura into showing an interest. Hill was eventually knocked down to Nomura for £700m, with the defendants receiving £5.3m for their services. The claimant sued for 10% of this latter sum.

The case is a very good demonstration of the obsolescence of unjust enrichment in this area. Most of Thomas J's judgment is about nailing down a claim in contract. Thomas J rejects it, because while the claimant had talked to the defendants a great deal about what they were planning to do, neither side had suggested that the claimant should do any work for which defendants should pay him. There was no express or implied understanding for payment, and so no contract.

When we look at Thomas J's treatment of the claim in restitution, we see that his reasons are identical. The restitution claim fails for exactly the same reason that the contract claim does : that CB never expressly or impliedly asked the claimant to do anything; the claimant "was neither offering a service nor expecting to be paid"; he was acting for himself and not offering to act for CB.

I can see why *claimants* sometimes like being able to put the same claim more than one way, especially if they can dress it up in so much jargon that it is not obvious that they are doing that. But why do some jurists want to encourage them ?

At 10:51 02/09/99 +0100, Andrew Tettenborn wrote:

Devotees of the arguments related to free acceptance, incontrovertible benefit, and those who have nothing better to do than stand by watching hopeful window cleaners may like to look at Becerra & Page v Close Bros, Thomas J, 25/6/99. Considerable discussion of the whole area, tho' the claim failed n the facts