Ahmad & Ors v Bank of Scotland & Ors
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- His Honour Judge PURLE QC (sitting as a High Court Judge)
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Contract Law
- Tort Law
- Banking and Finance Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
His Honour Judge Purle QC, sitting as a High Court Judge, determined defense applications for strike out and summary judgment in litigation between four individual partners/directors (and their associated entities Zanrose Developments Limited and Zanrose Textiles Limited) and their Bank, together with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP partners and GVA Grimley Plc receivers. The claim centered on a 27 May 2008 Bank letter that granted a final extension to end of June 2008, allegedly embodying promises not to appoint receivers and to allow continued facilities while the partners sold the Bollo Bridge Road properties. The judge construed the letter as conditional only on the partners marketing those properties and found no express or implied waiver of enforcement or variation of security rights, nor any extension to other assets or the NIG insurance claim. He held the September 2008 appointments of receivers were lawful; estoppel and evidence defeated undervalue and loss claims; economic tort allegations against the receivers failed; and the NIG settlement was reasonable. The entire claim was struck out and dismissed.
Judgment
JUDGE PURLE: The first applications I have to deal with are applications by the defendants for a combination of a strike out and for summary judgment. There are proposed amended Particulars of Claim. Permission to amend is yet to be given, but everyone agreed that I should determine the application by reference to the pleading that the claimants now wish to put forward. There is an application before the court for such an amendment, which is resisted on the grounds that there is no reasonable prospect of success and no real basis for a claim, that is to say on the same grounds as summary judgment and a strike out are sought.
The claimants fall into two groups. First, there are four individual claimants who are the shareholders and directors of the sixth and seventh corporate claimants, Zanrose Developments Limited (“ZDL”) and Zanrose Textiles Limited (“ZTL”). The fifth claimant is Zanrose Developments, a firm which is merely the trading style and therefore an emanation of the first four claimants. Whether or not the joinder of the fifth claimant is mere surplusage given the presence of all the individual partners is not something I need trouble myself with. All relevant parties are unquestionably before the court.
I shall call the first defendant “the Bank”.
The individual claimants had banking facilities with the Bank’s predecessor. They fell into arrears under various loan arrangements they had both through the partnership and through the corporate claimants, for whom they had given guarantees. The corporate claimants had in addition cross-guaranteed each other’s indebtedness. It is alleged by the claimants that a contract was entered into with the Bank in May 2008 which the Bank breached by subsequently appointing Receivers over all of the properties charged to the Bank. Some of the properties (known as the Bollo Bridge properties) were owned by the partnership. In addition, ZDL owned a property known as Cleveland Road, and ZTL owned a property which included a warehouse. The warehouse itself burnt down in late 2005 giving rise to an outstanding insurance claim known for short as the NIG Claim.
In the case of all of the properties owned by the individual claimants and ZDL, LPA Receivers were appointed by the Bank in September 2008, being the third and fourth defendants, both partners of the second defendant, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. I shall call them the PWC Receivers. They were also appointed Administrative Receivers of ZTL by the Bank