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I have now made the full text available on my restitution site; go to www.law.cam.ac.uk/ restitution/restitution.htm and follow English/Welsh cases --- Easat.

The case certainly seems awkward for anyone who looks for "benefit" in any ordinary sense of the word, though of course there are various extraordinary senses doing the rounds, so to speak.

At 10:31 07/09/00 +0100, you wrote:

An interesting gloss on Regalian and wasted expenses from Hart J.

The MOD wanted wireless equipment. Racal wanted to tender and needed to subcontract the antennae. They approached Easat, & after the usual humming and hawing agreed that Easat would get the subcontract if they got the contract with the MoD. But the price was left to future negotiation, & so any possible contract claim by Easat was stymied by Walford v Miles. Later, by which time Easat (with some encouragement from Racal) had incurred £100k plus R & D, Racal placed the subcontract elsewhere before successfully tendering to the MoD.

Can Easat claim their R & D? Yes, despite Regalian. Regalian only applies where the claimant knows there isn't a contract & therefore acts at its own risk. Here Easat thought (wrongly as a matter of law) that there was a valid agreement, & this made all the difference. See Easat v Racal, unrep (I think) 28.3.00.

The interesting point is that no-one seems to have mentioned the Planche v Colburn point, i.e. no benefit to Racal anyway. Or am I missing something?

Andrew Tettenborn MA LLB
Bracton Professor of Law