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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions >> Three Rivers District Council v. Governor and Company of The Bank of England [2001] UKHL 16; [2001] 2 All ER 513 (22nd March, 2001)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2001/16.html
Cite as: [2001] UKHL 16, [2001] Lloyds Rep Bank 125, [2001] Lloyd's Rep Bank 125, [2001] 2 All ER 513, (2001) 3 LGLR 36
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Three Rivers District Council v. Governor and Company of The Bank of England [2001] UKHL 16; [2001] 2 All ER 513 (22nd March, 2001)
HOUSE OF LORDS
Lord Steyn Lord Hope of Craighead Lord Hutton Lord Hobhouse of Wood-borough Lord Millett
OPINIONS OF THE LORDS OF APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT
IN THE CAUSE
THREE RIVERS DISTRICT COUNCIL
(APPELLANTS)
v.
GOVERNOR AND COMPANY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND
(RESPONDENTS)
ON 22 MARCH 2001
[2001] UKHL 16
LORD STEYN
My Lords,
1. For the reasons given by my noble and learned friends, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Hutton, I would also allow the appeal. While it is unnecessary for me to cover the same ground, I must state in outline the principal factors that proved decisive in my approach to the case.
2. It is right at the outset to emphasise that in substance one is dealing with a striking out application. The Bank of England submitted that the claims are plainly and obviously unsustainable. In aid of this submission the Bank deployed a written case of no less than 737 pages, amplified by many pages of written aids and lengthy oral argument. It was hardly a simple and obvious case for a striking out. At the end of the argument my views were that the Bank had not succeeded in establishing that it would be right and fair to strike out the claims. Having studied with care the judgments below, as well as the draft speeches on the appeal to the House, I am reinforced in my first view by a combination of the dissenting judgment of Auld LJ in the Court of Appeal, and by the majority speeches of Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Hutton.
3. It is necessary to test the question whether the action should be struck out against the new draft particulars of claim drafted and served after the first hearing: [2000] 2 WLR 1220, 1236E.
4. The case fell into two distinct parts. The first question was whether the plaintiffs have pleaded a reasonable cause of action. In essence this was a demurrer point. With due deference to contrary views I have to say that I was unimpressed by the Bank's technical arguments under this heading. The new draft particulars of claim plead the case in misfeasance in public office in clear terms and in sufficient detail to enable the Bank to prepare a defence. The Bank does not need any further particulars. I would reject the Bank's arguments under this heading.
5. The second question was whether the action is an abuse of the court's process in that it has no realistic prospect of success. This is the more difficult and controversial aspect of the appeal. The Court of Appeal was divided on the issue. The dissenting judgment of Auld LJ is an impressive one. The judgments of Clarke J at first instance and of the majority (Hirst and Walker LJJ) in the Court of Appeal are detailed and careful. Unfortunately, however, the use made by the judge and by the majority in the Court of Appeal of the Bingham Report of October 1992 was not permissible. The report is self-evidently an outstanding one produced by an eminent judge. But in law the judge and the majority erred in relying on positive conclusions and findings, and absence of conclusions and findings, of Bingham LJ. Not only was such use of the report ruled out by settled principles of law but on broader grounds it was also unfair to the claimants. After all, the report was the outcome of a private inquiry, the claimants were not represented before Bingham LJ and the case against the Bank was not put by counsel. And the Appendices to the report, which recount the history in greater detail, were not published and have never been seen by those representing the claimants.
6. In these circumstances it is necessary for the House to consider the matter entirely afresh. Since I share the views of Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Hutton I do not propose to revisit the battleground. But I must emphasise that it is indisputably the case that the Bank knew from April 1990 onwards that BCCI was in imminent danger of collapse with inevitable loss to depositors unless there was a real prospect of an effective rescue package. The Bank has failed to persuade me that the claimants have no realistic prospect of establishing that the Bank knew that there would be no effective and comprehensive rescue or was reckless as to whether there would be one. Moreover, I do not share the confidence of the judge and the majority in the Court of Appeal that discovery and cross examination will not produce significant materials assisting the claimants. It is a case that should be examined and tested with the procedural advantages of a fair and public trial.
7. My conclusion is therefore strongly influenced by the events from April 1990. On the other hand, I also take the view that the earlier part of the history cannot be excised. The interests of justice require that the entire action should be permitted to go to trial. This conclusion involves no judgment about the likely outcome of the case but merely a finding that the threshold requirement for striking out has not been satisfied.
8. I would, therefore, allow the appeal, dismiss the cross appeal and give leave to the claimants to amend their pleading in terms of the new draft particulars of claim. Like Lord Hope of Craighead I regard the supplementary directions sought by the claimants as entirely reasonable, but on balance I would also leave it to the Commercial Judge to give appropriate directions. I apprehend that he will wish to proceed to trial with due despatch and a minimum of technical interlocutory hearings. And in proceeding to trial it is axiomatic that the trial judge will have to approach this case in a neutral fashion and without preconceptions. He will have to ignore expressions of opinion on the facts in any of the speeches.
9. At the request of the bank the issue of costs is reserved. Written submission on costs are invited within 21 days.
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD
My Lords,
10. At the previous hearing of this appeal your Lordships were concerned only with two questions of law. The first related to the ingredients of the tort of misfeasance in public office on which the plaintiffs' first ground of action depends. The second was whether the Bank was capable of being liable to the plaintiffs in damages for violation of the requirements of the First Council Banking Co-ordination Directive of 12 December 1977 (77/780/EEC). For the reasons given in your Lordships' judgment of 18 May 2000 [2000] 2 WLR 1220 the second question was answered in the negative. It is not necessary to give any further consideration to the Community law issues. They no longer form any part of the plaintiffs' case against the Bank. At the further hearing of the appeal with which this judgment deals your Lordships' task has been to consider whether the facts alleged or capable of being alleged by the plaintiffs meet the test for the tort of misfeasance in public office which were identified by your Lordships in answer to the first question. The question, in short, is whether the order of the Court of Appeal upholding the order of Clarke J that the action should be struck out should be upheld on the ground that the plaintiffs have no reasonable prospect of succeeding on the claim at trial.
11. Your Lordships have been assisted by the oral arguments which were advanced at the further hearing by Lord Neill QC for the plaintiffs and by Mr Stadlen QC for the Bank and by the very substantial amount of written material which has been provided by each side. The issues which have had to be resolved are far from easy. Some indication of their complexity can be gathered from the fact that the written cases for the plaintiffs (including their reply) and for the Bank (including a detailed response on the facts but excluding two appendices) run to 385 and 737 pages respectively. There are two bundles of contemporaneous documents extending to 661 pages and a supplementary bundle of documents which extends to about 300 pages. The amount of material that must be read and understood to see whether the claim should be struck out is formidable. It will be necessary for me before I address the competing arguments to set out some of the facts by way of background.
12. There are a number of preliminary points. (1) At a procedural hearing which was held on 27 June 2000 nine issues were identified for determination at the further hearing of the appeal. But it became clear in the course of the argument that there was a considerable amount of overlap between one issue and another and that it was more likely to be helpful for them to be looked at cumulatively rather than separately. So I do not propose to examine those issues one by one in this judgment. (2) In his judgment after the first hearing of this appeal my noble and learned friend Lord Steyn said that at the further hearing there should be available a new draft pleading by the plaintiffs reflecting the position which was recorded in your Lordships' judgments: [2000] 2 WLR 1220, 1236E. At the procedural hearing on 27 June 2000 the plaintiffs were required to serve their new draft pleading on the Bank by 17 July 2000, and they duly did so on that date. That new draft pleading is contained in a document entitled "New draft particulars of claim". For reasons which I shall explain later in more detail (see section (4)) it is to that document, which I shall call "the new draft particulars", that I shall for the most part direct my attention when I am discussing the question whether the facts pleaded meet the requirements of the tort. (3) These proceedings were issued before 29 April 1999 under the Rules of the Supreme Court ("RSC"), which were still in force when the case was in the Court of Appeal. On 29 April 1999 the Civil Procedure Rules ("CPR") came into force. This case is therefore subject to the transitional arrangements set out in the Practice Direction - Transitional Arrangements made under CPR rule 51.1. In accordance with the general principles which are set out in that Practice Direction the case is to proceed in the first instance under the previous rules, but any new step taken on or after 26 April 1999 is to be taken under the CPR: 51PD-003, 011.
13. The parties are agreed that the service of the new draft particulars on the Bank was a new step, and that it follows that the question whether the claim on the ground of misfeasance in public office should be struck out must now be determined under the CPR. As the CPR require that the word "claimant" be used rather than the word "plaintiff", I propose to adopt the same terminology from now on throughout this judgment. Rule 3.2 provides, so far as relevant to this case, that the court may strike out a statement of case if it appears to the court (a) that it discloses no reasonable cause of action or (b) that it is an abuse of the court's process. There is no exact dividing line between these two grounds: Civil Procedure 2000, 3.4.2. Mr Stadlen did not attempt to maintain an exact separation between them and in the end, as I shall explain below (in section (5)), he invited your Lordships to give summary judgment against the claimants under CPR, rule 24.2.
14. I propose to deal with the various matters that require to be considered at this stage in this order: (1) introductory narrative, to include (a) outline chronology, (b) the Bingham report and (c) history of the proceedings to date; (2) the requirements of the tort; (3) whether the facts pleaded by the claimants are capable of meeting those requirements; (4) the decision of the courts below to strike out; (5) the test for summary judgment under CPR rule 24.2; (6) whether, applying that test, the claim should be summarily struck out; (7) the Bank's cross-appeal; and (8) conclusion and further procedure.
15. I should also make it clear at the outset that, although I shall be using the expression "the Bank" throughout this judgment, the claimants' position as explained in their written case is that those who were principally responsible for the regulation and supervision of BCCI SA were the officials of the Banking Supervision Division formed by the Bank in March 1980 for the purpose of implementing the Banking Act 1979 whose names are given in Schedule 1 to the particulars to the new draft particulars.
(1) Introductory Narrative
(a) Outline Chronology
16. The history of the rise and fall of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA ("BCCI SA") can conveniently be divided up for the purposes of this action into four periods: (1) the period prior to the grant of a full licence under the Banking Act 1979 on 19 June 1980; (2) the period from the grant of the full licence to December 1986; (3) the period from December 1986 to April 1990; and (4) the period from April 1990 to closure in July 1991. This history was set out in great detail by Clarke J in his third judgment of 31 July 1997 (unreported), in which the history was divided up into the same four periods, and it was reviewed again in Part III of the judgment of the majority in the Court of Appeal of 4 December 1998 [2000] 2 WLR 15 (Part III of which is also unreported). I do not propose to set out that history all over again. No significance is to be attached to the fact that I have mentioned some events in the course of this narrative and omitted others. What follows is not intended to be a complete or definitive account of what happened. But for the purposes of this judgment it is necessary to provide an outline of the chronology and to identify some of the more important details in that history.
17. BCCI SA was incorporated under the laws of Luxembourg on 21 September 1972. In November it established its first office in the United Kingdom and commenced its business in this country as a deposit-taker. Two years later the structure of BCCI was altered by the incorporation on 13 December 1974 of BCCI Holdings SA ("Holdings") in Luxembourg of which BCCI SA became a subsidiary. On 25 November 1975 another subsidiary of Holdings called BCCI Overseas ("Overseas") was incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Overseas opened its first branch in the United Kingdom in June 1976. At this stage a substantial part of the issued share capital of Holdings was owned by the Bank of America. Although the group was trading through various branches in the United Kingdom it was not subject to any regulatory system in this country. But Holdings was subject to regulation in Luxembourg by the Luxembourg Banking Commission ("LBC") which at that time was that country's regulatory authority. At the end of 1977 the Bank of America decided to withdraw from its relationship with BCCI. It sold its holding of shares in Holdings to International Credit and Investment Co Ltd ("ICIC") which at that time was BCCI's largest shareholder.
18. Prior to the enactment of the Banking Act 1979 banking in the United Kingdom was not subject to any formalised system of regulation. Control was exercised in an informal way by the Bank of England and in an indirect manner by means of various statutory provisions which gave privileges to banks which were recognised by the Board of Trade and by the Bank. Following the publication of a White Paper in 1976 and the First Council Banking Co-ordination Directive (77/780/EEC) steps were taken to establish a new statutory system of banking supervision in the United Kingdom. This was contained in the Banking Act 1979, which came into force on 1 October 1979. It provided for the recognition of banks under section 3(1) if they satisfied the criteria in Schedule 2, Part I, and for the licensing of deposit-taking institutions under section 3(2) if they satisfied the less stringent criteria in Schedule 2, Part II. Section 3(5) of the Act provided that, in the case of an institution whose principal place of business was in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, the Bank might regard itself as satisfied that the criteria in Schedule 2 regarding those responsible for the management of the business and the prudence with which its business was being conducted were fulfilled if the relevant supervisory authorities informed the Bank that they were satisfied with respect to them and the Bank was satisfied as to the nature and scope of the supervision exercised by those authorities.
19. On 1 October 1979 BCCI SA applied to the Bank for recognition as a bank under the Act. On 19 June 1980 the Bank refused recognition as a bank but granted to BCCI SA a full licence under the Act as a deposit-taker. By that date its principal place of business was in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless the Bank decided to rely under section 3(5) of the 1979 Act on the supervision of its activities by LBC. The claimants' case is that when the Bank granted the licence (a) it did so knowingly deliberately contrary to the statutory scheme or (b) it was recklessly indifferent to whether it was acting in accordance with the scheme or (c) it wilfully disregarded the risk that it was not acting in accordance with that scheme (i) in bad faith and (ii)(a) in the knowledge that the likely consequences were losses to depositors and potential depositors or (b) that it wilfully disregarded the risk of the consequences or (c) that it was recklessly indifferent to those consequences: see paragraph 31 of the new draft particulars.
20. During the period from June 1980 to December 1986 the activities of the BCCI group expanded dramatically not only in the United Kingdom but throughout the world. Officials of the Bank pointed out that it was unsatisfactory for it as the supervising authority of BCCI SA in the United Kingdom to rely, as it had been doing under section 3(5) of the 1979 Act, on the views of LBC as to the activities of the holding company in Luxembourg. They recognised that, as the activities of BCCI continued to expand, pressure was likely to grow for its recognition as a bank under that Act. Various possible solutions were considered including, on the one hand, a proposal for the Bank to supervise the whole institution and, on the other, the incorporation of Holdings in the United Kingdom to improve the effectiveness of the Bank's supervision of the group's activities in this country. In September 1984 the effectiveness of the existing statutory regime was called into question by the collapse of Johnson Matthey Bankers. In the light of that debacle a further White Paper was produced and the enactment of a new statute, which was to become the Banking Act 1987, was proposed. The system introduced by the 1979 Act was to be both strengthened and simplified. In place of the dual system of recognition and licensing a single system of authorisation was to be introduced with restrictions on the use of banking names. The Bank was to be required to establish a committee to be known as the Board of Banking Supervision which was to include six independent members as well as three members ex officio. Various other changes were to be made to the powers and duties of the Bank as regulatory authority.
21. Meantime the Bank continued to rely on the views of the Luxembourg regulatory authority. In May 1983 the responsibilities of regulatory authority in that country had passed from the LBC to L'Institute Monetaire Luxembourgeois ("IML"). Further memoranda passed between officials of the Bank drawing attention yet again to the fact that the real place of business of the BCCI SA was in London and that effectively the Bank and not IML was its prime supervisor. Concern was expressed about heavy losses resulting from BCCI SA's central treasury activities which had been identified by BCCI SA's auditors but not been reported to the Bank and BCCI's lack of candour about its decision to relocate its central treasury operation from London to Abu Dhabi.
22. The claimants' case regarding this period, which follows the same pattern as that set out in paragraph 31 of the new draft particulars which relates to the first period, is that the Bank was continuing to rely on assurances from LBC and IML and, that despite its knowledge of the illegality of this arrangement and the likelihood of losses to depositors, it failed in bad faith to take steps to revoke BCCI SA's licence under section 7 of the 1979 Act.
23. The next period was marked by a number of changes in the supervisory regime and further expressions of concern about the activities of BCCI. The 1987 Act came into force on 1 October 1987. Section 3(5) of the 1979 Act was replaced by an equivalent provision in section 9(3) of the 1987 Act. BCCI SA was deemed to be authorised under the 1987 Act by section 107 of that Act and Schedule 5, paragraph 2. An international co-operative group, known as "the College", was established to enable the various national supervisors of the operations of the BCCI Group to meet twice-yearly to discuss its financial condition. Concern was expressed at meetings of the College about a large concentration of exposures due to the group's lending and the effect on the group's activities of the arrest of seven of its officials in Tampa, Florida in October 1988 on charges of drug-trafficking, money-laundering and conspiracy. Further consideration was given to proposals for the restructuring of the group's activities with a view to achieving effective consolidated supervision in London by the Bank. On 30 January 1990 the Bank decided to continue BCCI SA's authorisation following a decision of the Tampa prosecutor to enter into a plea-bargain agreement, approved by the court, by which SA and Overseas pleaded guilty to all counts of money-laundering and conspiracy. Concerns were expressed to the Bank by the group's auditors, Price Waterhouse ("PW"), about the probity of BCCI's senior management.
24. The claimants' case regarding this period contains three specific allegations about decisions by the Bank not to withdraw the authorisation from BCCI SA. These are said to have been taken (1) after the Bank had learned in May 1986 that BCCI, which had been dealing on a massive scale in the financial and commodity markets through its central treasury in London, had incurred losses amounting to some $285 million: new draft particulars, Schedule 5, paragraphs 26 and 27; (2) after a paper prepared by the Bank for the Board of Banking Supervision in November 1989 had revealed serious defects in the group's structure and the existing supervisory regime and the extent to which BCCI's activities in the UK were dependent upon what happened elsewhere in the group which was largely unsupervised: new draft particulars, Schedule 6, paragraph 19; and (3) after the officials of BCCI had pleaded guilty in Tampa, Florida in January 1990 to charges of money-laundering and conspiracy: new draft particulars, Schedule 6, paragraph 24.
25. The final period from April 1990 to closure in July 1991 began with expressions of concern to the Bank by PW about the group's serious financial problems and reports about efforts which were being made to obtain financial support from the majority shareholders. On 18 April 1990 PW reported to the board of Holdings that they were unable to sign the 1989 accounts. Later that month they felt able to do so in the light of expressions of support for the group by the Abu Dhabi Government. In early June 1990 IML, recognising that they were no longer in a position effectively to supervise their activities, gave notice to Holdings and to BCCI SA that they must leave Luxembourg within the next 12 to 15 months. These matters were discussed at a meeting of the College on 19 June 1990 when IML repeated its ultimatum and the Cayman supervisor said that, if SA had to leave Luxembourg, Overseas would have to leave Cayman. Further consideration was given to the need for a clear group structure, consolidated supervision of its activities, relocation of the group to Abu Dhabi and the need for a clear and substantial commitment by the Abu Dhabi Government of its support for it.
26. In October 1990 PW reported to Holdings' audit committee that an urgent investigation was needed to quantify the group's liabilities and its need for financial support. On 5 October 1990 a letter was produced to the College on behalf of the majority shareholders undertaking to provide support to the level indicated by PW. But IML refused to extend its deadline unless certain conditions were met and the supervisors did not regard the shareholders' proposals for support as acceptable. By December 1990 a revised support package had been put together which PW regarded as acceptable, but later that month PW became aware of the extent to which BCCI's financial problems were due to fraudulent activities on the part of management. On 4 March 1991 the Bank commissioned PW to investigate and report to it under section 41 of the Banking Act 1987 on malpractice within BCCI. PW delivered their report to the Bank on 24 June 1991. It contained a comprehensive account of widespread frauds and deceptions which had been perpetrated by BCCI. Four days later the Bank decided that the proposed reconstruction of the group could not be pursued and that to protect depositors BCCI SA had to be closed down. On 5 July 1991 the Bank presented a petition for the appointment of a provisional liquidator.
27. The claimants' case regarding this period, as explained by Lord Neill QC in oral argument, is based on general allegations that the Bank failed in bad faith to face up to its responsibilities as a supervisor to take decisions that would protect the interests of depositors and potential depositors when it was aware that there was a serious and immediate threat that unless it was rescued by the Abu Dhabi Government BCCI would collapse.
(b) The Bingham Report
28. The closure of BCCI on 5 July 1991 provoked widespread concern in the financial community on the ground that this action was long overdue, yet the action that was taken was criticised by depositors, employees and shareholders as precipitate. In a prompt response to that concern Bingham LJ was invited to conduct an inquiry into the supervision of BCCI under the Banking Acts, to consider whether the action taken by all the UK authorities was timely and to make recommendations. The establishment of the inquiry was announced on 19 July 1991. Bingham LJ submitted his report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank in July 1992. Among the questions which he understood to call for consideration by his terms of reference were the following: What did the UK authorities know about BCCI at the relevant times? Should they have known more? And should they have acted differently?
29. The report (Inquiry into the Supervision of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (HC Paper (1992-93) No 198) contains a masterly and eminently readable account of the entire sequence of events from the establishment of BCCI in the UK in 1972 to its closure in July 1991. Bingham LJ took evidence both orally and in writing from a large number of witnesses and he had access to many documents. In his covering letter he paid tribute to the very high level of co-operation which he had received from, among others, the Bank and the UK firm of Price Waterhouse, who acted from June 1987 to July 1991 as the group's auditors. He said that in deciding what was said and done during BCCI's nineteen year history he had relied heavily on contemporary notes and minutes of meetings and conversations between the Bank and Price Waterhouse. His report contains numerous findings of fact and expression of opinion relevant to the questions which he understood to have been comprised within his terms of reference. The report was published in October 1992, but eight appendices to the report were not published.
30. Much of the claimants' pleading has been based upon material taken from that report. This is unsurprising, in view of the fact that the claimants have not yet had the benefit of discovery of documents or the obtaining of answers to interrogatories. The assumption can properly be made at this stage that the narrative which the report contains will in due course be capable of being established by evidence once the claimants have obtained access to the relevant documents. But there are important limitations on the use which can be made of this document. I shall have to deal with this matter in more detail later when I come to the arguments relating to strike out, but I should like to make the following observations at this stage.
31. The first point that has to be borne in mind is that neither the report itself nor any of its findings or conclusions will be admissible at any trial in this case. At this stage, when the only material that is available for consideration apart from the pleadings is the report and an incomplete bundle of relevant documents, it is tempting to fill in the gaps by reference to Bingham LJ's findings and the conclusions which he was able to draw from his review of the evidence. Nevertheless a sharp dividing line must be observed between, on the one hand, his narrative of the evidence and, on the other hand, his findings and conclusions in the light of that evidence.
32. It can, as I have said, be assumed that if the claim is not struck out the claimants will in due course have access to the evidence which provides the source material for that narrative, and that that evidence will be capable of being led by them at the trial. But, as Bingham LJ's findings and conclusions based on that narrative are inadmissible, they must be held to be incapable either of being led in evidence at the trial or of being used by either side in any other way in support of the competing arguments. As Hirst LJ observed in the Court of Appeal, no comparable statutory provisions to those which are to be found in section 441 of the Companies Act 1985 apply to the Bingham report: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 91A-C. The investigation which Bingham LJ conducted was a private and not a statutory inquiry. The rigorous attention which must be paid to the distinction between what would and what would not be admissible has not always been observed in the written cases, and I had the impression that it was not always being observed during the oral argument. Nor, for reasons which I shall explain later, do I think that it was always observed either by Clarke J or by the majority in the Court of Appeal in their judgments on the issues relating to the question of strike out. This has an important bearing on the question whether those judgments were soundly based and should be upheld or whether, because they were not soundly based, the question of strike out is now at large for your Lordships' re-consideration.
33. A further point that should be noted at this stage about the findings and conclusions in the Bingham report is that they were the result of an investigation that lacked the benefit of statutory powers and was conducted behind closed doors. The claimants were not present nor were they represented. In the conduct of his fact-finding exercise Bingham LJ was, as he said in his covering letter, greatly assisted by the co-operation which he received especially from the Bank and Price Waterhouse. But he had no power to compel the attendance of witnesses or to require the production of documents, and there was no counsel to the inquiry. As the appendices have not been published, the claimants have not had access to all the material which Bingham LJ had before him. None of these observations are intended to suggest that the investigation was incomplete or that the report, for the purposes for which it was prepared, is in any way open to criticism. But it is plain that it cannot be suggested that Bingham LJ was in a position to conduct a fair trial of the issues relating to the tort of misfeasance in public office which the claimants are seeking to raise against the Bank in this case. In these circumstances I agree with the views which Auld LJ expressed in the Court of Appeal in his minority judgment when he said that it would not be right to treat the Bingham report as effectively conclusive on the questions that arise in this litigation or to conclude that all the available evidence on those questions has been gathered in: [2000] 2 WLR 15 180 D-E.
(c) History of proceedings to date
34. The claimants' writ of summons was issued on 24 May 1993. On 19 July 1995 Clarke J made an order for the following questions to be tried as preliminary issues: (1) Is the defendant capable of being liable to the plaintiffs for the tort of misfeasance in public office? (2) Were the plaintiffs' alleged losses caused in law by the acts or omissions of the defendant? (3) Are the plaintiffs entitled to recover for the tort of misfeasance in public office as existing depositors or potential depositors?
35. On 19 July 1995 Clarke J gave the claimants leave to amend their pleadings for the purposes of these preliminary issues. On 21 August 1995 the claimants lodged a re-amended statement of claim. Following Clarke J's first and second judgments of 1 April 1996 and 10 May 1996 [(1996] 3 All ER 558 and 634) in which he expressed his preliminary conclusions on the three preliminary issues, the claimants applied for leave to re-re-amend their statement of claim and the Bank made an application for the statement of claim to be struck out. Clarke J heard argument on these applications in November and December 1996. The claimants then proposed a series of further amendments to their proposed re-re-amended statement of claim, and an eighth draft was lodged on 6 January 1997.
36. After a further hearing in April 1997 when he considered the claim as then formulated Clarke J delivered a judgment on 30 July 1997 (unreported) in which he held that, on the basis of the evidence then available, the claim was bound to fail; that, as there was no reasonable possibility that the claimants would obtain evidence in the future which might enable them to succeed, the claim was bound to fail in the future; that in these circumstances it would be an abuse of process or vexatious or oppressive to allow the action to proceed; that the application to re-re-amend the statement of claim should be refused; and the action should be struck out.
37. When he was expressing his conclusions in his third judgment on the present material, at pp 166-167, Clarke J said:
- "I have reached the firm conclusion that on the material available at present the plaintiffs have no arguable case that the Bank dishonestly granted the licence to BCCI or dishonesty failed to revoke the licence or authorisation in circumstances when it knew, believed or suspected that BCCI would probably collapse. There is nothing in the Bingham report or in the documents which I have seen to support such a conclusion and there is much to contradict it."
38. In regard to the future, he recognised, at p. 167, that Bingham LJ was not conducting a trial but an inquiry, that he did not see a number of Bank officials, that the witnesses whom he did see were not cross-examined in an adversarial process and that there was no right of appeal. But he then went on to say that there was in his judgment no realistic possibility that he had not correctly set out the state of mind of the Bank at each stage. He concluded, at p 169:
- "In these circumstances I accept Mr Stadlen's further submission that there is no realistic possibility of more evidence becoming available, whether by further investigation, discovery, cross-examination or otherwise, which might throw light upon the state of mind of the Bank or any of its relevant officials during the period in which BCCI was operating."
39. In the Court of Appeal the majority (Hirst and Robert Walker LJJ) upheld the order pronounced by Clarke J. They asked themselves the question whether the claimants had an arguable case that the Bank actually foresaw BCCI's imminent collapse at each relevant stage. They said that they agreed with the judge's conclusion that, on the material then available, the plaintiffs did not have an arguable case that the Bank actually foresaw BCCI's imminent collapse at each relevant stage. They also agreed with him that, in all the circumstances, it was now for all practical purposes inconceivable that new material would emerge of such significance as to alter that conclusion: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 101F-H. Auld LJ dissented as to the test to be applied. He did not consider that a claimant in an action for misfeasance in public office who could establish dishonesty in the sense of a knowing and deliberately or recklessly unlawful act by the defendant need also establish some knowledge on the officer's part of consequential damage, whether in the form of foresight or foreseeablility: p 166A-B. But he went on to consider and give his view on the question whether the claim should be struck out on the assumption that the claimants had to establish that the Bank knew, believed or suspected that its conduct would probably cause loss: p 175F. He said that there were no exceptional circumstances to justify departing from the normal rule of leaving the matter to the trial judge: p 180D-H.
40. On 21 January 1999 the Court of Appeal gave leave to the claimants to appeal to the House of Lords on the claimants' undertaking to apply to your Lordships for a direction that the correct test for misfeasance in public office should be determined before any consideration of whether the facts alleged or capable of being alleged were capable of meeting that test. On 12 May 1999 your Lordships gave the claimants leave to appeal against the refusal of leave to re-re-amend the statement of claim. On 17 July 2000, as they were directed to do at the procedural hearing on 27 June 2000 which followed the delivery of your Lordships' first judgment, the claimants served the new draft particulars on the Bank.
(2) The Requirements of the Tort
41. The correct test for misfeasance in public office was established by your Lordships' judgment following the previous hearing of this appeal: [2000] 2 WLR 1220. I do not wish to repeat or to analyse what your Lordships said in that judgment. But there are two matters with which I must deal. In the first place it is necessary for me to identify my understanding of the various elements in the light of which the question whether the facts pleaded by the claimants in the new draft particulars satisfy its requirements must be tested. In the second place I must examine Mr Stadlen's argument that the claimants' pleadings are based on a misunderstanding of those requirements.
42. The following are the essential elements of the tort which are relevant to the examination of the new draft particulars. First, there must be an unlawful act or omission done or made in the exercise of power by the public officer. Second, as the essence of the tort is an abuse of power, the act or omission must have been done or made with the required mental element. Third, for the same reason, the act or omission must have been done or made in bad faith. Fourth, as to standing, the claimants must demonstrate that they have a sufficient interest to sue the defendant. Fifth, as causation is an essential element of the cause of action, the act or omission must have caused the claimants' loss.
43. As to standing, the interest to sue of those who were already depositors with BCCI is not in doubt. A question has been raised about the interest to sue of potential depositors. This is because a widespread economic effect resulting from the misfeasance does not give a cause of action to the public in general. But the Bank, while reserving the right to pursue the issue at trial, accepts that it is capable of being liable for the tort to claimants who were potential depositors with BCCI at the time of any relevant act or omission of misfeasance by the Bank. As to causation, the Bank submits that it is not capable of having caused loss to depositors or potential depositors where the proximate cause of the loss was the deliberate act of a third party - in this case, fraudulent acts of individuals within BCCI. But questions of fact are raised by this argument which are unsuitable for summary determination at this stage.
44. The first, second and third requirements lie at the heart of the argument. No further explanation is required as to the test which must be met to satisfy the first requirement. As to the second and third requirements, the claimants do not allege that the Bank did or made the acts or omissions intentionally with the purpose of causing loss to them. The allegation is that this is a case of what is usually called "untargeted malice". Where the tort takes this form the required mental element is satisfied where the act or omission was done or made intentionally by the public officer (a) in the knowledge that it was beyond his powers and that it would probably cause the claimant to suffer injury, or (b) recklessly because, although he was aware that there was a serious risk that the claimant would suffer loss due to an act or omission which he knew to be unlawful, he wilfully chose to disregard that risk. In regard to this form of the tort, the fact that the act or omission is done or made without an honest belief that it is lawful is sufficient to satisfy the requirement of bad faith. In regard to alternative (a), bad faith is demonstrated by knowledge of probable loss on the part of the public officer. In regard to alternative (b), it is demonstrated by recklessness on his part in disregarding the risk. The claimants rely on each of these two alternatives.
45. At the first hearing Mr Stadlen argued that recklessness was not sufficient to satisfy the required mental element. Your Lordships rejected this submission, with the result that it must be assumed for the purposes of the argument at this stage that the claimants are entitled to include this alternative as part of their case. His argument at the further hearing was that, as one of the essential requirements of the tort was knowledge, belief or suspicion that the act or omission would probably cause loss to depositors or potential depositors, in order to achieve harmony between the two alternatives knowledge, belief or suspicion of "probable loss" was a necessary element in the case of the alternative of recklessness. He submitted that without evidence to support this requirement there could be no liability under the second, or "untargeted malice", limb of the tort.
46. I would reject these submissions also. The effect of your Lordships' decision following the first hearing is that it is sufficient for the purposes of this limb of the tort to demonstrate a state of mind which amounts to subjective recklessness. That state of mind is demonstrated where it is shown that the public officer was aware of a serious risk of loss due to an act or omission on his part which he knew to be unlawful but chose deliberately to disregard that risk. Various phrases may be used to describe this concept, such as "probable loss", "a serious risk of loss" and "harm which is likely to ensue". Although I have used the phrase "serious risk of loss", I do not think that for present purposes it is necessary to choose between them. Further attempts to define their meaning would raise issues of fact and degree which are best considered at trial. The absence of an honest belief in the lawfulness of the conduct that gives rise to that risk satisfies the element of bad faith or dishonesty.
(3) Whether the facts pleaded are capable of meeting the requirements of the tort
47. The question to which I now turn relates to the adequacy of the pleadings. This is the first of the two broad grounds on which the Bank say the claim should be struck out. The issue here is directed to the sufficiency of the particulars. It is whether, assuming the facts alleged to be true, a case has been made out in the pleadings for alleging misfeasance in public office by the Bank. If it has, then the question whether the pleading is supported by the evidence is normally left until trial. In McDonald's Corp v Steel [1995] 3 All ER 615, 621E-F Neill LJ said:
- "It is true that a pleader must not put a plea of justification (or indeed a plea of fraud) on the record lightly or without careful consideration of the evidence available or likely to become available. But, as counsel for the plaintiffs recognised in the course of the argument, there will be cases where, provided a plea of justification is properly particularised, a defendant will be entitled to seek support for his case from documents revealed in the course of discovery or from answers to interrogatories."
I shall deal later (in section (3)) with the question to which Mr Stadlen directed the main part of his argument. This is whether there are reasonable grounds for thinking that evidence to support the allegations is or is capable of being made available. The question with which I propose to deal at this stage is whether the grounds for the claim have been properly particularised.
48. The Bank makes much of the fact that the claimants have received numerous warnings of the need for particulars to be given of the facts relied on in support of their allegations and of the many opportunities that they have been given to amend their statement of claim. Your Lordships are invited to infer from the absence of particulars, and in the light of the available evidence, that the claimants are not able to make good their allegations and that on this ground alone Clarke J was right to order that the claim should be struck out. On the other hand the claimants say that the Bank is well aware of the case that they seek to bring and that the Bank's argument is calculated to place an insuperable obstacle in their path.
49. In my judgment a balance must be struck between the need for fair notice to be given on the one hand and excessive demands for detail on the other. In British Airways Pension Trustees Ltd v Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons Ltd (1994) 72 BLR 26, 33-34 Saville LJ said:
- "The basic purpose of pleadings is to enable the opposing party to know what case is being made in sufficient detail to enable that party properly to prepare to answer it. To my mind it seems that in recent years there has been a tendency to forget this basic purpose and to seek particularisation even when it is not really required. This is not only costly in itself, but is calculated to lead to delay and to interlocutory battles in which the parties and the court pore over endless pages of pleadings to see whether or not some particular point has or has not been raised or answered, when in truth each party knows perfectly well what case is made by the other and is able properly to prepare to deal with it."
50. These observations were made under the old rules. But the same general approach to pleadings under the CPR was indicated by Lord Woolf MR in McPhilemy v Times Newspapers Ltd [1999] 3 All ER 775, 792J-793A:
- "The need for extensive pleadings including particulars should be reduced by the requirement that witness statements are now exchanged. In the majority of proceedings identification of the documents upon which a party relies, together with copies of that party's witness statement, will make the detail of the nature of the case the other side has to meet obvious. This reduces the need for particulars in order to avoid being taken by surprise. This does not mean that pleadings are now superfluous. Pleadings are still required to mark out the parameters of the case that is being advanced by each party. In particular they are still critical to identify the issues and the extent of the dispute between the parties. What is important is that the pleadings should make clear the general nature of the case of the pleader. This is true both under the old rules and the new rules."
51. On the other hand it is clear that as a general rule, the more serious the allegation of misconduct, the greater is the need for particulars to be given which explain the basis for the allegation. This is especially so where the allegation that is being made is of bad faith or dishonesty. The point is well established by authority in the case of fraud.
52. In Wallingford v Mutual Society (1880) 5 App Cas 685, 697 Lord Selborne LC said:
- "With regard to fraud, if there be any principle which is perfectly well settled, it is that general allegations, however strong may be the words in which they are stated, are insufficient even to amount to an averment of fraud of which any court ought to take notice."
In the same case, at p 709, Lord Watson said:
- "My Lords, it is a well-known and a very proper rule that a general allegation of fraud is not sufficient to infer liability on the part of those who are said to have committed it. And even if that were not the rule of the common law, I think the terms of Order XIV would require the parties to state a very explicit case of fraud, or rather of facts suggesting fraud, because I cannot think that a mere statement that fraud had been committed, is any compliance with the words of that rule which require the defendant to state facts entitling him to defend. The rule must require not only a general and vague allegation but some actual fact or circumstance or circumstances which taken together imply, or at least very strongly suggest, that a fraud must have been committed, those facts being assumed to be true."
53. The Bank says that, as an allegation of misfeasance in public office involves an allegation of dishonesty or bad faith on the part of the public officer, particulars must be given of the facts which, if proved, would justify the allegation. It is also said that it is not enough to aver facts which are consistent either with dishonesty or with negligence. Dishonesty or bad faith must be proved, so the facts relied on must point distinctly to dishonesty. Reference was made to Davy v Garrett (1878) 7 Ch D 473, 489 where Thesiger LJ said:
- "It may not be necessary in all cases to use the word 'fraud' - indeed in one of the most ordinary cases it is not necessary. An allegation that the defendant made to the plaintiff representations on which he intended the plaintiff to act, which representations were untrue, and known to the defendant to be untrue, is sufficient. The word 'fraud' is not used, but two expressions are used pointing at the state of mind of the defendant - that he intended the representations to be acted upon, and that he knew them to be untrue. It appears to me that a plaintiff is bound to show distinctly that he means to allege fraud. In the present case facts are alleged from which fraud might be inferred, but they are consistent with innocence. They were innocent acts in themselves, and it is not to be presumed that they were done with a fraudulent intention."
54. It seems to me that it can no longer seriously be maintained by the Bank that they do not have sufficient notice of the case which is being made against them. It is abundantly clear that what the claimants are seeking to prove is misfeasance in public office. As my noble and learned friend Lord Hutton has pointed out, the draft new particulars contain detailed allegations to the effect that the Bank acted in bad faith. It has all along been common ground that the claimants cannot base their claim against the Bank in negligence. As Hirst LJ observed in the Court of Appeal, at p 32, the immunity which the Bank enjoys under section 1(4) of the Banking Act 1987 unless it is shown that the act or omission was in bad faith goes a long way to explaining why the claimants have undertaken the burden of seeking to prove misfeasance in public office.
55. In my view this point alone is a sufficient answer to the criticism based on Thesiger LJ's remarks in Davy v Garrett. The principle to which those remarks were directed is a rule of pleading. As the Earl of Halsbury LC said in Bullivant v Attorney General for Victoria [1901] AC 196, 202, where it is intended that there be an allegation that a fraud has been committed, you must allege it and you must prove it. We are concerned at this stage with what must be alleged. A party is not entitled to a finding of fraud if the pleader does not allege fraud directly and the facts on which he relies are equivocal. So too with dishonesty. If there is no specific allegation of dishonesty, it is not open to the court to make a finding to that effect if the facts pleaded are consistent with conduct which is not dishonest such as negligence. As Millett LJ said in Armitage v Nurse [1998] Ch 241, 256G , it is not necessary to use the word "fraud" or "dishonesty" if the facts which make the conduct fraudulent are pleaded. But this will not do if language used is equivocal: Belmont Finance Corporation Ltd v Williams Furniture Ltd [1979] Ch 250, 268 per Buckley LJ. In that case it was unclear from the pleadings whether dishonesty was being alleged. As the facts referred to might have inferred dishonesty but were consistent with innocence, it was not to be presumed that the defendant had been dishonest. Of course, the allegation of fraud, dishonesty or bad faith must be supported by particulars. The other party is entitled to notice of the particulars on which the allegation is based. If they are not capable of supporting the allegation, the allegation itself may be struck out. But it is not a proper ground for striking out the allegation that the particulars may be found, after trial, to amount not to fraud, dishonesty or bad faith but to negligence.
56. In this case it is clear beyond a peradventure that misfeasance in public office is being alleged. There is an unequivocal plea that the Bank was acting throughout in bad faith. The Bank says that the facts relied on are, at best for the claimants, equally consistent with negligence. But the substance of that argument is directed not to the pleadings as such, which leave no doubt as to the case that is being alleged, and the basis for it in the particulars, but to the state of the evidence. The question whether the evidence points to negligence rather than to misfeasance in public office is a matter which must be judged in this case not on the pleadings but on the evidence. This is a matter for decision by the judge at trial.
57. The Bank nevertheless submits that the facts pleaded fail to meet the requirements of the tort. Three reasons are advanced in support of this argument. The first is that the claimants have failed to allege the requisite mental element as to loss. Mr Stadlen said that it was not enough for the claimants to show that the Bank knew that depositors and potential depositors were at risk. As he put it, nothing short of a properly particularised allegation of knowledge or recklessness of probable loss, known or suspected, would satisfy the test. The second is that the pleadings do not contain a properly particularised allegation that the Bank in the person of identified officials committed acts or omissions of misfeasance dishonestly in the sense of committing them with subjective bad faith. Mr Stadlen submitted that it was well understood that an allegation of dishonesty had to be supported by particulars from which the inference of dishonesty could be drawn. A failure to satisfy this requirement was in itself a ground for a strike out. The third is that the pleadings do not contain a properly particularised allegation that Bank officials took conscious decisions capable of amounting to acts or omissions of misfeasance. Mr Stadlen directed this part of his argument to what he described as the revocation claim. He accepted that the initial decision to licence BCCI SA was particularised. But he said that only three instances were given of decisions not to revoke, and that in the case of only one of these instances - the Bank's decision in October 1986 not to revoke notwithstanding the scale of the central treasury losses - was there any attempt to suggest that the decision was taken dishonestly.
58. I would reject the first of these three arguments on the ground that it was based on a misunderstanding of the requirements of the tort. The claimants' case on the pleadings is that at each stage in the history the Bank knew that the likely consequences were that depositors and potential depositors would suffer losses, wilfully disregarded the risk of the consequences or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences: new draft particulars, paragraphs 31 - 35. Knowledge that the depositors were likely to suffer loss is averred. But the claimants are also offering in the alternative to prove reckless indifference to the risk of loss. As I have already said (in section (2)) I do not think that it is necessary for present purposes to choose between the various phrases that may be used to describe the nature or degree of the risk. This would be to raise issues of fact and degree that are best considered at trial. It was not suggested that, if there was a case to be made on knowledge of probable loss, the pleading as to recklessness should be struck out at this stage. The Bank's position, as explained in its written case, is that it will not be possible to identify with precision which allegations should be struck out until the parties have seen your Lordships' judgment and that for the time being this exercise is premature.
59. Mr Stadlen said that the essential difference between the parties on this part of the case at this stage is on the question whether knowledge, belief or suspicion of probable loss has to be established where the allegation is that the act or omission was done or made recklessly. He accepted that an allegation of knowledge that loss was "likely" was, in effect, the same as an allegation that it was "probable". He also accepted that the words used in the new draft particulars to describe the tort, although not precisely the same as those used in your Lordships' judgment, were formulated with sufficient accuracy. But he maintained that the material referred to in the particulars did not support an allegation of knowledge, belief or suspicion of likely or probable loss. He said that none of this material came near to meeting that test, and that there was no indication in the Bingham report that material which would do so was available. At best it supported an allegation of knowledge that there was a risk of loss. But this was not enough to satisfy the test of knowledge that loss was probable.
60. As I have already said more than once, I do not think that it is appropriate at this stage to attempt to define the required state of mind more precisely. This is a matter which is so bound up with the facts that it is best left until trial. It is a question of fact and degree. The greater the risk of loss the easier it is likely to be to say that loss was probable and the easier it will be to find that where that risk was known, believed or suspected there was recklessness. The statutory powers of supervision were conferred on the Bank for the protection of depositors and potential depositors. As the fourth recital of the First Council Banking Co-ordination Directive (77/780/EEC) puts it, supervision of a credit institution is needed "in order to protect savings". The system is based on the assumption that, where that protection is lacking, deposits are likely to be at risk. The question whether at any given point of time that risk is sufficiently serious to justify a finding of recklessness on the part of a supervisor, who knows that the statutory requirements are not fulfilled, is aware of the risk but takes no action to withdraw authorisation or otherwise limit the activities of the deposit-taker, is one of degree. I would hold that it is essentially a question of fact for the trial judge. I do not think that a view on this matter can safely be formed at this stage by a reading of the available documents.
61. I should add, in order to emphasise the importance which I attach to seeing this as a question of fact and degree, that I see much force in Auld LJ's observation in his dissenting judgment about the Orwellian illogicality of sharpening the test of foresight of probable damage for the purposes of the strike out application to one of foresight of probable (imminent) collapse of BCCI. He said at [2000] 2 WLR 15, 177C:
- "If such a test is to survive it will enable a banking regulator who deliberately and knowingly does not supervise a bank as it should do (as is conceded to be arguable here), with resulting damage to its depositors, to defeat a misfeasance claim simply by saying 'because I did not make the inquiries that I should have done, I did not suspect that the plaintiff would probably suffer loss.' In short it enables a banking regulator to rely on its own deliberate and knowing illegality as a justification for its lack of foresight that it would cause damage. If 'policy' and 'principle' are to be invoked, it must be against providing such an incentive to a banking regulator, or any public body exercising a supervisory function over institutions in the interest of persons for whom they provide a service, not to do their duty. And to load a plaintiff/depositor with the further burden of proving that, despite the regulator's self-imposed ignorance, it foresaw damage in the particular form in which it occurred seems to me, with respect, even more illogical and unjust in a common law remedy the purpose of which is to provide a remedy for abuse of public duty."
62. The second argument on the pleadings is that the claimants have failed to give particulars of their allegation of dishonesty and to link those allegations with particular officials of the Bank. Here again regard must be paid to the fact that the claimants rely in the alternative on the concept of recklessness. I refer to the comments which I made in the previous section about Mr Stadlen's submission that an allegation of dishonesty in the sense of subjective bad faith is an essential element. The effect of your Lordships' decision following the first hearing is to the contrary. Recklessness is demonstrated where it is shown that the public officer was aware of a serious risk of loss due to an act or omission on his part which was unlawful but chose deliberately to disregard that risk. That is sufficient to establish that he did not have an honest belief in the lawfulness of the conduct which, to his knowledge, gave rise to that risk. Recklessness about the consequences, in the sense of not caring whether the consequences happen or not, will satisfy the test. In this context there is no additional element of dishonesty or bad faith that requires to be satisfied. As for the particular officials against whom the allegation is made, I consider that the Bank has been given sufficient notice of the claimants' case against their officials in the particulars when read with the documents.
63. It is alleged in paragraph 31 of the new draft particulars that the Bank in bad faith at all times from 1979 onwards purported to rely pursuant to section 3(5) of the 1979 Act, and subsequently section 9(3) of the 1987 Act, upon assurances given by LBC/IML concerning the management and financial soundness of BCCI SA. Particulars are then given in that paragraph of the matters about this arrangement which are said to have been known to the Bank or about which it was recklessly indifferent. These are that the principal place of business of BCCI SA was in the UK, that LBC/IML did not and could not assure the Bank that it was satisfied with the management and overall financial soundness of BCCI SA, and that for various reasons that are specified LBC/IML had declared itself unable to carry out adequate supervision of both BCCI SA and the BCCI group. It is also said that the Bank knew that the consequence of its unlawful reliance upon LBC/IML was that BCCI SA would be and would continue to be unlawfully licensed, and subsequently authorised, and that it was recklessly indifferent to the risk that this presented to depositors and potential depositors. In paragraph 37 of the new draft particulars, under reference at each stage in the history to the facts and matters set out in Schedules 2 to 7 of the particulars, details are given of the respects in which the motives of the Bank for breaching its statutory duties as regulator were in bad faith. It seemed to me at first sight that these particulars give ample notice to the Bank of the case which is being made against it as to the requirement of bad faith. But the point requires further examination in the light of further points in Mr Stadlen's argument.
64. The claimants are taken some distance down the road they must travel by a concession which the Bank made to Clarke J which the judge recorded in his third judgment, at p 32, in these terms:
- "with one exception I shall assume that they can establish that the Bank knew, believed or suspected at each stage that its proposed act or its omission was unlawful. With that one exception, the Bank has conceded that it cannot show that the plaintiffs' case that it knew, believed or suspected that its acts or omissions were unlawful is doomed to failure. That exception is the way that section 3(5) of the Banking Act 1979 was applied."
65. In the Court of Appeal, as appears both from the majority judgment and that of Auld LJ, it was understood to be common ground that there was an arguable case that the Bank was aware of illegality in its supervision of BCCI SA: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 92H, 179G . Mr Stadlen objected to these passages on the ground that the extent of the Bank's concession was being misrepresented. He said that the Bank made one very narrow concession only, which was that for the purposes of the preliminary issue it was arguable that the Bank knew, believed or suspected that it was not entitled to rely, for the purpose of ongoing supervision of BCCI SA, on assurances given by LBC/IML because after, but not before, the licence was granted it knew, believed or suspected that its principal place of business was not in Luxembourg. I am content to accept Mr Stadlen's assurance that the concession was limited to this point. Nevertheless it seems to me to be a significant one. It limits the areas for discussion to the granting of the licence on the one hand, as to which all issues remain in play, and to the Bank's ongoing supervision on the other hand, as to which the issue relates to the question whether the pleadings reveal an arguable case as to recklessness about the consequences.
66. With regard to the question whether the claimants have sufficiently alleged dishonesty or bad faith when the Bank granted the licence in the first place, the majority in the Court of Appeal agreed with Clarke J's finding at p 44 of his third judgment that there was material from which it was at least arguable that the Bank must have known at that stage that LBC were not regulating BCCI SA properly and that it did not have the resources to do so in the future: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 92B. I agree, and I also consider that sufficient notice of the facts on which the claimants propose to rely is given in Schedule 2 to the new draft particulars. As for Mr Stadlen's argument that the documents read in the light of the Bingham report do not provide any support for these particulars, I consider that issues of fact are raised here which, subject to further arguments about abuse of process, I would not expect to be answered satisfactorily in advance of a trial. As for the later stages in the history, the issue of dishonesty or bad faith is so bound up with the broad issue of recklessness that here too, subject to further arguments about abuse of process, I would hold that the issue raises questions of fact and degree which are best left for decision by the trial judge in the light of the evidence.
67. The third argument is that there was a failure to provide particularised allegations in regard to the revocation claim. Mr Stadlen accepted that the initial decision to licence BCCI SA was particularised. But he said that, despite Clarke J's warning that particulars had to be given of the decisions that were said to amount to misfeasance, the claimants' case was still largely based on alleged omissions. He said that only three instances could be identified in the new draft particulars where it was alleged that decisions had been taken by the Bank not to revoke. These were the decision in October 1986 not to revoke the authorisation despite its knowledge of the scale of BCCI SA's central treasury losses, the decision not to revoke in December 1989 in the light of the criticisms expressed in the paper prepared by the Banking Supervision Department for the Board of Banking Supervision in November of that year and the decision not to revoke in January 1990 following the plea bargain which led to the settlement of the Tampa indictment: new draft particulars, Schedule 5, paragraphs 27 and Schedule 6, paragraphs 19 and 24. He maintained that this was a fundamental defect in the revocation claim, as a conscious decision was needed to support a case of misfeasance in public office. It was not open to the claimants to rely on a general reference to the Bank's omission to act day by day over the entire period, as the tort required proof of acts done by the public official intentionally.
68. In my opinion this argument is based on a misconception of the thrust of the claimants' allegations and on a misunderstanding of the requirements of the tort. The claimants' case, as Lord Neill explained, is that the Bank deliberately ran away from its responsibility as the relevant supervisory authority throughout the history of BCCI SA's activities in this country to safeguard the interests of depositors and potential depositors. He said that a series of events could be identified in the particulars to show that the Bank deliberately failed to take steps which it might have taken to deal with the situation despite its awareness of facts or circumstances which revealed the extent of the risk to those interests. I agree that particulars are given throughout the pleadings of events which are arguably of this character. Examples of such events are given in the new draft particulars, Schedule 5, paragraphs 17 and 34-35, and there are many more.
69. Furthermore, as Lord Neill pointed out, the tort extends to decisions not to exercise powers as well as decisions to exercise them. In the early days, when the tort was largely confined to disputes over voting rights, it was invoked to deal with the improper exercise of official power. Later, it was invoked in other areas of official regulation through licensing and other controls of that kind. Again the typical complaint was of the improper exercise of the power. That remains true in the majority of the more modern cases. Bourgoin SA v Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food [1986] QB 716 is an example, as that case was concerned with the withdrawal of a licence. But, as Brennan J said in Northern Territory of Australia v Mengel (1995) 69 ALJR 527, 545 in a passage which was approved in your Lordships' previous judgment in this case, any act or omission done or made by a public official can found an action for misfeasance in public office. If it were otherwise, a banking regulator would be able to defeat a misfeasance claim simply by resorting to inaction in the face of obvious and immediate risks despite the fact that it knew, believed or suspected that its reckless and deliberate course of inaction was likely to result in damage to depositors and potential depositors. For these reasons I would reject the argument that proof of conscious decisions to act or not to act is required. In my view the tort extends to a deliberate or wilful failure to take those decisions.
70. For these reasons I would hold that the facts pleaded by the claimants in the new draft particulars are capable, if proved, of meeting the requirements of the tort. I must now turn to the alternative ground for striking out, which was that of abuse of process.
(4) The decision of the courts below to strike out
71. Clarke J said that he understood it to be common ground between the parties that in appropriate circumstances the court had power to strike an action out under its inherent jurisdiction and under RSC Ord 18 r 19. The question which he then asked himself was whether the Bank had shown that the claimants' case was bound to fail on the material presently available and that there was no reasonable possibility of evidence becoming available to them, whether by further investigation, discovery, cross-examination or otherwise sufficiently to support their case and to give it some prospect of success. As he put it, if the Bank were to discharge that burden, it would follow that the claim was bound to fail: third judgment, pp 6-7. He then embarked on a detailed examination of all the material which was available to the claimants to support their claim. I agree with the majority in the Court of Appeal that this was a vastly difficult undertaking: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 90A.
72. Clarke J's conclusion, after examining the available material over many days, was that the claimants had no arguable case on the material then available that the Bank dishonestly licensed BCCI SA or dishonestly failed to revoke the licence or authorisation in circumstances when it knew, believed or suspected that it would probably collapse without being rescued: third judgment, p 166. The Court of Appeal agreed with the judge that it was right, in the exceptional circumstances of this case, to conduct this exercise: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 88B-D, 90A-B. After reviewing the judge's conclusion in great detail, the majority agreed with the judge that all the evidence indicated that up to April 1990 the Bank did not actually foresee BCCI SA's imminent collapse, and thereafter that it did but properly relied on the prospect of a rescue: p 101H.
73. Concurrent findings of fact are not normally open to review in your Lordships' House. For the like reasons as those on which this rule is based I would not have thought that it was appropriate for your Lordships to interfere with the concurrent findings of the judge and the majority in the Court of Appeal after conducting such a detailed and time-consuming exercise unless some flaw in their reasoning could be demonstrated. There are however two grounds on which it was contended they misdirected themselves. The first relates to the requirements of the tort. The second relates to the use which they made of the Bingham report.
74. It is not necessary for me to deal in detail with the differences which have emerged between your Lordships and the courts below as to the requirements of the tort. For the most part Clarke J's conclusions as to the legal principles to be applied which he summarised at the end of his first judgment [1996] 3 All ER 558, 632G-633E were approved in the judgment given by your Lordships after the first hearing of this appeal [2000] 2 WLR 1220. The majority in the Court of Appeal said that they were in broad agreement with the judge's conclusions on the tort and that they had adopted the same approach as he had taken when they were considering whether the claimants' case was bound to fail: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 67E-F, 101H. But there is one point of difference which is of obvious importance, as it lies at the heart of the argument between the parties. This relates to the state of knowledge of the public officer about the prospect of loss that has to be demonstrated where the claim is based on the concept of recklessness.
75. In his formulation Clarke J said that, for the purposes of the requirement that the officer knows that his act will probably injure the claimant, it is sufficient if he has actual knowledge that his act will probably damage the claimant or, in circumstances in which he believes or suspects that his act "will probably" damage the plaintiff, he does not ascertain whether that is so or fails to make inquires as to "the probability" of such damage: [1996] 3 All ER 558, 633A-B. In the Court of Appeal the majority asked themselves whether the claimants had an arguable case that the Bank "actually foresaw" BCCI's imminent collapse at each relevant stage: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 101H. They went on to say at p 102A-B that that formulation might have been too favourable to the claimants and that, in view of the stringent requirements of the tort of misfeasance in public office, the more appropriate question might be whether the Bank "knew" that its decision would cause loss to the claimants. I would not regard the fact that the latter observation is not supported by your Lordships' judgment as important, as the majority do not say that they based their decision on this view. But it is clear that the theme of knowledge of probable loss informed the approach which was taken throughout these judgments to the question whether the claim should be struck out.
76. Mr Stadlen sought to support this approach. But, for the reasons which I have already given, I would hold that it is not consistent with the effect of your Lordships' judgment following the first hearing. As I have already said when I was reviewing the requirements of the tort in an earlier section of this judgment (section (2)), the state of mind which amounts to subjective recklessness is demonstrated where it is shown that the public officer was aware of a serious risk of loss due to an act or omission on his part which he knew to be unlawful but chose deliberately to disregard that risk, and the question whether at any given point of time that risk is sufficiently serious to justify a finding of recklessness is one of degree. I consider that this point alone is sufficient to justify taking a fresh look at the question whether the claimants have a seriously arguable case directed to the issue of recklessness.
77. Then there is the use which was made in their judgments by Clarke J and the majority in the Court of Appeal of the findings and conclusions in the Bingham report. Clarke J said (at p 167 of his third judgment) that he recognised that Bingham LJ was not conducting a trial but an inquiry, that he did not see a number of Bank officials, that the witnesses whom he did see were not cross-examined in an adversarial process and that there was no right of appeal. But he went on to say this, at pp 167-169:
- "On the other hand, it is plain that in addition to questioning witnesses Bingham LJ considered in detail all the relevant internal documents in the possession of the Bank, which involved a perusal of a mass of documentation. As I have already said, it is clear from the terms of Bingham LJ's covering letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and indeed from many passages in the report itself, that he was applying his mind to question what was the state of mind of the Bank at each stage. In these circumstances I accept Mr Stadlen's submission that it is inconceivable that Bingham LJ was aware of material which was materially at odds with his conclusions as to the state of mind of the Bank. There is, in my judgment, no realistic possibility that he has not correctly set out the state of mind of the Bank at each stage.
- "While it is, of course, true that I have seen only the report and not the appendices, the published report is a summary of an even more detailed narrative in the appendices. Since, as just stated, Bingham LJ was expressly considering the state of mind of the Bank at each stage, it is in my judgment inconceivable that there is in the appendices material which would or might support the conclusion that the Bank had the state of mind which the plaintiffs must establish. If there was, Bingham LJ would have referred to it, even if only to dismiss it. He would certainly not have disregarded it. As I have tried to indicate, at no doubt inordinate length, there is nothing in the material which I have seen which gives arguable support for the plaintiffs' case. I would, however, go further. There is nothing in that material which gives reasonable grounds for supposing that there might be other evidence which might in the future support the plaintiffs' case. In these circumstances I accept Mr Stadlen's further submission that there is no realistic possibility of more evidence becoming available, whether by further investigation, discovery, cross-examination or otherwise, which might throw light upon the state of mind of the Bank or any of its relevant officials during the period in which BCCI was operating."
78. The Court of Appeal said that, while the judge seemed to them to be putting the matter too high in the first of the two paragraphs which I have quoted from his judgment, they agreed with him that there was no realistic possibility that the picture which would emerge if officials of the Bank were to give evidence which was tested by cross-examination would be fundamentally different. In that respect the report was, despite its informal status, an invaluable aid to distinguishing between what was a practical possibility and what was fanciful and inconceivable: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 91F-G. Auld LJ disagreed with this approach. In his view Clarke J was not entitled to treat the Bingham report effectively as conclusive on the questions that arise in this litigation or to conclude that all the available evidence about the Bank's state of knowledge had been gathered in or properly tested. He said that there were no exceptional circumstances to justify departing from the normal rule of leaving the matter to the trial judge: p180D-H.
79. As I said in a previous section of this judgment (section (1)(b)), there are important limitations on the use which can be made of the Bingham report in these proceedings. A sharp dividing line must be observed between Bingham LJ's narrative of the evidence, which is a legitimate source to which reference can be made for the purposes of the motion to strike out, and his findings and conclusions in the light of that evidence. It is not just that those findings and conclusions would not be admissible at trial. Fairness to the claimants requires that proper weight is given to the nature of Bingham LJ's inquiry and its limitations. He was not asked to determine the issues relating to the tort of misfeasance in public office which the claimants now seek to raise. These issues were not on trial in those proceedings. There is no doubt that Bingham LJ was chosen to conduct the inquiry because of his outstanding qualities as a judge and the weight of authority which his findings and recommendations would command. But those considerations must not be allowed to affect the rigorous distinction that must be maintained between those parts of the report that are and are not relevant to the Bank's motion to strike out.
80. As I have already said, Clarke J made it clear that he recognised these limitations: see p 167 of his third judgment. Nevertheless I have formed the clear impression that his view that the claim should be struck out was materially influenced by findings and conclusions and the absence of findings and conclusions in the Bingham report, and that he did not confine himself, as I consider he should have done, strictly to the narrative. I do not leave out of account the fact that he was responding to the way in which the claimants had presented their case. It is clear that they were drawing on those aspects of the report that suited them. It is not surprising that the Bank replied by pointing out those parts of the report that did not, and that the judge in his turn was drawn into this argument. Nevertheless the claimants are, in my view, entitled to say that Bingham LJ's findings and conclusions ought not to be used against them in this way. Bingham LJ's findings and conclusions about the availability of further evidence coming to light were made in proceedings to which they were not parties, and they could not challenge them on appeal. Cogent though these findings and conclusions may appear to be, the claimants are entitled to a fair trial of the claim which they have made against the Bank.
81. In the following passage at pp 37-38 of his third judgment Clarke J explained his general approach to the Bingham report before he embarked upon a detailed consideration of the various stages in the history:
- "Mr Stadlen submits that there is no support anywhere in the Bingham report for the conclusion that the Bank acted dishonestly, or that it knew that it was acting unlawfully or that it suspected that its acts or omission would probably cause loss to depositors or potential depositors. For the reasons already stated I shall focus only on the last of these, but I accept the submission that there is no statement in the report which gives any support for the conclusion that at any stage the Bank suspected that depositors and potential depositors would probably suffer loss as a result of the Bank's action or inaction. Yet, as stated on page iii of the covering letter to which I have already referred, it is clear that Bingham LJ was considering the Bank's state of mind at every stage. In my judgment, if Bingham LJ had formed the view that at any stage the Bank suspected that its action or inaction would probably injure depositors or potential depositors he would have said so. Thus, if he had thought that the Bank suspected that BCCI would probably collapse so that new depositors would probably lose their money at any stage of the story from 1979 to 1991 he would have said so.
- "Yet, not only did he not say so, but his observations on the evidence are inconsistent with any such conclusion."
82. Thereafter during his examination of the history he made frequent reference to findings or conclusions, or to the absence of conclusions and findings, in the Bingham report. His purpose in doing so was to explain why he was of the opinion that there was nothing in the material he had seen which gave reasonable grounds for supposing that other evidence might become available to throw light on the state of mind of the Bank during the relevant period: see the conclusion, already quoted, which he expressed at pp 167-168. The following passage, in which he dealt with the claimants' submission that the Bank must have known when it granted the licence that the principal place of business of BCCI was in the United Kingdom and not in Luxembourg, at p 43, illustrates this point:
- "However, the difficulty with the plaintiffs' submission is that Bingham LJ held in paragraph 2.23 that the Bank never addressed the question what was meant by principal place of business. It assumed wrongly that the principal place of business was in the country of incorporation. Further Bingham LJ says in paragraph 2.24 that the Bank never inquired where the principal place of business was, in the sense of where the mind and management of the company and its central direction resided. The Bank thus treated section 3(5) of the Act as applicable and applied it. In paragraph 2.25 Bingham LJ says that he read nothing sinister in that approach. Moreover, on the footing that the principal place of business was in the United Kingdom, under section 36 BCCI was not entitled to describe itself as a bank, but Bingham LJ says in paragraph 2.33 that it was not until after the licence had been granted that the Bank recognised that fact. There is, in my judgment, no material available to the plaintiffs or to the court to lead to any different conclusion."
83. Among the other passages that might be quoted are those at p 89, where the judge referred to a conclusion in paragraph 2.66 of the report in support of the view that there was no evidence that the Bank suspected in June 1986 following the central treasury losses that BCCI would probably collapse, let alone that it would probably collapse because of an absence of remedial steps; at p 110, where he referred to a conclusion in paragraph 2.154 of the report to the same effect as to the Bank's state of mind in December 1989; and at pp 153 -154, where he referred to paragraphs 2.333 and 2.337 of the report as to the Bank's state of mind in March 1991 when it commissioned PW to investigate and report on malpractice within the group under section 41 of the 1987 Act.
84. In their written submissions to the Court of Appeal (paragraph 61) the claimants said that they did not object to the court having regard to the report. But they pointed out that its contents would not be admissible in any trial and that it was odd that the judge considered it permissible or appropriate to determine factual issues by reference to it and to strike out the action in reliance upon it. Nevertheless it is clear that the majority in that court followed Clarke J's approach, and that to a material extent their decision to dismiss the appeal was based on the same view as that which the judge had formed in the light of the findings and conclusions that Bingham LJ expressed.
85. That there was a fundamental difference of view in the Court of Appeal on this point is clear from Auld LJ's dissenting judgment. He noted the fact that Clarke J relied heavily on the Bingham report as a justification for taking the exceptional course of striking out the claim as doomed to fail [2000] 2 WLR 15, 179C. After pointing out the different functions of that inquiry from those involved in this litigation and the disadvantages that were inherent in that procedure, he said at p 180D-F:
- "In the circumstances, I am of the view that Clarke J was not entitled to treat Bingham LJ's report effectively as conclusive on the questions he, the judge, had to answer in this litigation or to conclude, as he did, that all the available material evidence on those questions had been gathered in. Given the greater generality of the questions in the Bingham inquiry, the limitations of it as a fact-finding exercise when compared with litigation, his acknowledgement of a number of challenges to some of his factual conclusions and the emergence of additional material since the inquiry indicating the Bank's state of knowledge as to the Gokal unrecorded loans, I can see no basis for Clarke J's confidence in this extraordinary and complex case for concluding that Bingham LJ had seen and fully tested all the material evidence available or likely to become available on the issues confronting the court in this case."
86. I respectfully agree with and would endorse these observations. In my judgment the extent to which the opinions expressed by both Clarke J and the majority in the Court of Appeal were dependent upon passages in the Bingham report which are irrelevant to the issue of strike out provides a further reason for taking a fresh look at this critical issue. For the same reasons I consider that the claimants' motion for leave to re-re-amend the statement of claim is open to re-consideration by your Lordships. The draft re-re-amended statement of claim has now been superseded by the draft new particulars, and it is to that document that I shall direct my remarks on the question whether leave should now be given.
(5) The test for summary judgment under CPR rule 24.2
87. Clarke J ordered that the action should be struck out under RSC, Ord 18, r 19 on the grounds that the re-amended statement of claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action and that it would be an abuse of process or vexatious or oppressive to give leave to re-re-amend. The parties are agreed that if the question whether the claim should be struck out is to be reconsidered it must now be determined under the Civil Procedure Rules 1998: see the general principle stated in Practice Direction - Transitional Arrangements, 51PD-011. The power which is given to the court to strike out under CPR Part 3, which is concerned with the court's case management powers, is expressed in rule 3.4(2) in these terms:
- "The court may strike out a statement of case if it appears to the court -
- (a) that the statement of case discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing or defending the claim;
- (b) that the statement of case is an abuse of the court's process or is otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings; or
- (c) that there has been a failure to comply with a rule, practice direction or court order."
88. The parties also agree that, if Clarke J were to be held to have applied the wrong test when he ordered the action to be struck out, the relevant rules under the CPR are not confined to the provision for striking out in CPR rule 3.4. In Margulies v Margulies (unreported) 16 March 2000 the judge's decision to strike out was given pursuant to RSC Ord 18, r 19 before the coming into effect of the Civil Procedure Rules. Nourse LJ said at paragraph 63 that, if the judge wrongly applied the test, the Court of Appeal would have to determine the matter pursuant to CPR Part 24.2. I would not go so far as to say that your Lordships are obliged to treat the Bank's motion to strike out as an application for summary judgment under rule 24.2. It would, I think, be more accurate to say that your Lordships have power to do so, and that the question is whether your Lordships should exercise that power: see Taylor v Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd (No 2) (unreported) 21 July 1999: Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Transcript No 1200 of 1999 Civil Procedure 2000, 3.4.6. CPR Part 24 sets out various procedural requirements which do not apply to rule 3.4 But the claimants do not object to the application of rule 24.2 on procedural grounds. So I would accept Mr Stadlen's submission that it is appropriate for the Bank's application for the claim to be struck out to be treated as if it were an application for summary judgment.
89. CPR rule 24.2 provides:
- "The court may give summary judgment against a claimant or defendant on the whole of a claim or on a particular issue if -
- (a) it considers that -
- (i) that claimant has no real prospect of succeeding on the claim or issue; or
- (ii) that defendant has no real prospect of successfully defending the claim or issue; and
- (b) there is no other reason why the case or issue should be disposed of at a trial."
90. The test which Clarke J applied, when he was considering whether the claim should be struck out under RSC Ord 18, r 19, was whether it was bound to fail: see p 171 of the third judgment. Mr Stadlen submitted that the court had a wider power to dispose summarily of issues under CPR Part 24 than it did under RSC Ord 18, r 19, and that critical issue was now whether, in terms of CPR rule 24.2(a)(i), the claimants had a real prospect of succeeding on the claim. As to what these words mean, in Swain v Hillman [2001] 1 All ER 91, 92, Lord Woolf MR said:
- "Under r 24.2, the court now has a very salutary power, both to be exercised in a claimant's favour or, where appropriate, in a defendant's favour. It enables the court to dispose summarily of both claims or defences which have no real prospect of being successful. The words 'no real prospect of being successful or succeeding' do not need any amplification, they speak for themselves. The word 'real' distinguishes fanciful prospects of success or, as Mr Bidder QC submits, they direct the court to the need to see whether there is a 'realistic' as opposed to a 'fanciful' prospect of success."
91. The difference between a test which asks the question "is the claim bound to fail?" and one which asks "does the claim have a real prospect of success?" is not easy to determine. In Swain v Hillman at p 4 Lord Woolf explained that the reason for the contrast in language between rule 3.4 and rule 24.2 is that under rule 3.4, unlike rule 24.2, the court generally is only concerned with the statement of case which it is alleged discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing or defending the claim. In Monsanto plc v Tilly, The Times, 30 November 1999; Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Transcript No 1924 of 1999; Stuart Smith LJ said that rule 24.2 gives somewhat wider scope for dismissing an action or defence. In Taylor v Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd he said that, particularly in the light of the CPR, the court should look to see what will happen at the trial and that, if the case is so weak that it had no reasonable prospect of success, it should be stopped before great expense is incurred.
92. The overriding objective of the CPR is to enable the court to deal with cases justly: rule 1.1. To adopt the language of article 6.1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms with which this aim is consistent, the court must ensure that there is a fair trial. It must seek to give effect to the overriding objective when it exercises any power given to it by the Rules or interprets any rule: rule 1.2. While the difference between the two tests is elusive, in many cases the practical effect will be the same. In more difficult and complex cases such as this one, attention to the overriding objective of dealing with the case justly is likely to be more important than a search for the precise meaning of the rule. As May LJ said in Purdy v Cambran (unreported) 17 December 1999: Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Transcript No 2290 of 1999:
- "The court has to seek to give effect to the overriding objective when it exercises any powers given to it by the rules. This applies to applications to strike out a claim. When the court is considering, in a case to be decided under the Civil Procedure Rules, whether or not it is just in accordance with the overriding objective to strike out a claim, it is not necessary to analyse that question by reference to the rigid and overloaded structure which a large body of decisions under the former rules had constructed."
93. In Swain v. Hillman Lord Woolf gave this further guidance at pp 94 and 95:
- "It is important that a judge in appropriate cases should make use of the powers contained in Part 24. In doing so he or she gives effect to the overriding objectives contained in Part 1. It saves expense; it achieves expedition; it avoids the court's resources being used up on cases where this serves no purpose, and, I would add, generally, that it is in the interests of justice. If a claimant has a case which is bound to fail, then it is in the claimant's interests to know as soon as possible that that is the position. Likewise, if a claim is bound to succeed, a claimant should know this as soon as possible….
- "Useful though the power is under Part 24, it is important that it is kept to its proper role. It is not meant to dispense with the need for a trial where there are issues which should be investigated at the trial. As Mr Bidder put it in his submissions, the proper disposal of an issue under Part 24 does not involve the judge conducting a mini trial, that is not the object of the provisions; it is to enable cases, where there is no real prospect of success either way, to be disposed of summarily."
(6) Whether the claim should be summarily struck out
94. For the reasons which I have just given, I think that the question is whether the claim has no real prospect of succeeding at trial and that it has to be answered having regard to the overriding objective of dealing with the case justly. But the point which is of crucial importance lies in the answer to the further question that then needs to be asked, which is - what is to be the scope of that inquiry?
95. I would approach that further question in this way. The method by which issues of fact are tried in our courts is well settled. After the normal processes of discovery and interrogatories have been completed, the parties are allowed to lead their evidence so that the trial judge can determine where the truth lies in the light of that evidence. To that rule there are some well-recognised exceptions. For example, it may be clear as a matter of law at the outset that even if a party were to succeed in proving all the facts that he offers to prove he will not be entitled to the remedy that he seeks. In that event a trial of the facts would be a waste of time and money, and it is proper that the action should be taken out of court as soon as possible. In other cases it may be possible to say with confidence before trial that the factual basis for the claim is fanciful because it is entirely without substance. It may be clear beyond question that the statement of facts is contradicted by all the documents or other material on which it is based. The simpler the case the easier it is likely to be take that view and resort to what is properly called summary judgment. But more complex cases are unlikely to be capable of being resolved in that way without conducting a mini-trial on the documents without discovery and without oral evidence. As Lord Woolf said in Swain v Hillman, at p 95, that is not the object of the rule. It is designed to deal with cases that are not fit for trial at all.
96. In Wenlock v Moloney [1965] 1 WLR 1238 the plaintiff's claim of damages for conspiracy was struck out after a four day hearing on affidavits and documents. Danckwerts LJ said of the inherent power of the court to strike out, at p 1244B-C:
- "this summary jurisdiction of the court was never intended to be exercised by a minute and protracted examination of the documents and facts of the case, in order to see whether the plaintiff really has a cause of action. To do that is to usurp the position of the trial judge, and to produce a trial of the case in chambers, on affidavits only, without discovery and without oral evidence tested by cross-examination in the ordinary way. This seems to me to be an abuse of the inherent power of the court and not a proper exercise of that power."
Sellers LJ said, at p 1243C-D, that he had no doubt that the procedure adopted in that case had been wrong and that the plaintiff's case could not be stifled at that stage, and Diplock LJ agreed.
97. In the Court of Appeal [2000] 2 WLR 15, 86F the majority said that "this somewhat rigid position" had been modified in Williams and Humbert Ltd v W & H Trade Marks (Jersey) Ltd [1986] AC 368, where Lord Templeman said at pp 435H-436A that if an application to strike out involves a prolonged and serious argument the judge should, as a general rule, decline to proceed with the argument unless he not only harbours doubts about the soundness of the pleading but, in addition, is satisfied that striking out will obviate the necessity for a trial or will substantially reduce the burden of preparing for the trial or the burden of the trial itself: see also Lord Mackay of Clashfern at p 441E-F. But they were satisfied that this case fell within the exceptional class for the same reasons as those explained in the Williams and Humbert case, and that Clarke J was right to embark upon the exercise. I too would not criticise the judge for undertaking the exercise. But I would also pay careful regard to what the Court of Appeal in Wenlock v Moloney regarded as objectionable. In Morris v Bank of America National Trust [2000] 1 All ER 954, 966B Morritt LJ said that Wenlock's case illustrated a salutary principle. He then said at p 966B-C:
- "In the Three Rivers DC case the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Clarke J to strike out a complicated claim for damages for misfeasance in a public office made against the Bank of England for authorising BCCI to carry on the business of banking. In that case all the evidence then available to the plaintiff was before the court because all the facts had been investigated by Bingham LJ as he then was… Obviously the fact of a recent inquiry is a material distinction."
For reasons already explained (in section (4)), I do not think that the investigation that was conducted by Bingham LJ justifies a departure from the principle. I consider that both Clarke J and the majority in the Court of Appeal were wrong to approach this case on the basis that all the facts that are relevant to the claim that is being made in this case had been investigated.
98. The present case is, as everyone concerned with it has recognised, one of a quite exceptional character. The issues of fact which the claimants seek to raise are highly complex. They relate to matters in which they were not directly involved, as they were third parties to the system of regulation which was set up to protect them. They involve meetings and discussions between many parties at which they were not represented and they extend, through no fault of theirs, over a very long period. The issues of law are also complex, as the claim depends on an assessment of the state of mind of the Bank's officials at each of the various stages in the history. Much of what was passing through their minds can be discovered by examining the documents. But the court is normally reluctant to draw inferences of the kind that need to be drawn in this case without seeing and hearing the witnesses. Bingham LJ had that advantage. The court, so far, has not.
99. My approach to this issue can therefore be summarised against this background as follows. For the reasons which I have already given (in section (3)), I consider that the claimants' pleadings give sufficient notice to the Bank of the case which they wish to present and that the facts pleaded are capable of satisfying the requirements of the tort. That being so, I would be inclined to hold that this highly complex case should not be decided on the documents without hearing oral evidence but should go to trial. This view is reinforced by what I have said about the Bingham report. I would leave out of account the findings and conclusions in that report which the parties are agreed would at any trial be inadmissible. It is not just that, strictly speaking, they are irrelevant to any decision that might be made by the trial judge. I also believe, for the reasons that I have just given, that it would be contrary to the overriding requirement of fairness for them to be taken into account in reaching a decision as to whether this case can be decided without hearing oral evidence.
100. I would also examine the question whether the claim has no real prospect of succeeding at the outset from a totally neutral standpoint. By that I mean that I would not make any assumptions either one way or the other about the competence or integrity of the Bank or its officials as a prelude to examining the available evidence. I accept that conduct amounting to misfeasance in public office is not to be inferred lightly. That is true as a general proposition, whatever may be the task or status of the impugned public officer. But I think that it would be to risk pre-judging the case to attempt to evaluate the action's prospects of success by considering at this stage, before hearing evidence, whether the claimants' case against the Bank as regulator is inherently implausible or scarcely credible. These factors, taken as a whole, seem to me to point clearly against giving a summary judgment in the Bank's favour under CPR rule 24.
101. I turn then to the state of the evidence. I shall deal with this matter briefly. It is clear, as my noble and learned friend Lord Steyn has indicated, that the facts must be left to the trial judge if the case is to go to trial. As I said in my introduction (section (1)(a)), the history can conveniently be divided up into four periods: (a) prior to the grant of the licence in June 1980, (b) June 1980 to December 1986, (c) December 1986 to April 1990 and (d) April 1990 to closure in July 1991.
102. In regard to the period prior to the grant of the licence in June 1980 the majority in the Court of Appeal said that they agreed with Clarke J that there was material from which it could be said to be at least arguable that the Bank must have known that the Luxembourg regulators were not regulating BCCI SA properly and did not have the resources to do so. They were against the claimants on the question whether there was an arguable case on foresight of loss during this period: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 92A-C. Clarke J said, at p 40 of his third judgment, that it seemed to him to offend common sense to conclude that it actually knew, believed or suspected that if it licensed BCCI SA it would, or even might, collapse. By April 1990 however the picture had, in their view, entirely changed. The majority in the Court of Appeal said that the PW report to the board of BCCI Holdings of 18 April 1990 was highly significant, as it marked a date after which it would be impossible in their judgment to contend that there was no arguable case that the Bank was aware of a very serious and very immediate threat to depositors of BCCI SA: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 99H. Clarke J said (at p 117) that it is plain that the Bank appreciated that in the absence of remedial steps BCCI would probably collapse. His conclusion however was, at pp 164-165, that at no time between April 1990 and June 1991 did the Bank believe or suspect that the majority shareholders would probably not save the Bank. At this point therefore, as the majority in the Court of Appeal observed, at p 99H, the prospect of a rescue operation being promoted by the Abu Dhabi government, and the Bank's perception of the various possible outcomes, assumes central importance. The majority said, at p 101F, that they agreed with the judge that the claimants had no arguable case that the Bank dishonestly failed to revoke the authorisation of BCCI SA in circumstances when it knew, believed or suspected that the company would probably collapse without being rescued.
103. These views were, as can be seen from the judgments, heavily influenced by passages in the Bingham report which I consider to be irrelevant to the question whether the claim should be struck out. I have examined the available material from a different standpoint. I have left those passages out of account. I have asked myself whether, in regard to each of the four periods, the available material can be taken to have been fully examined and tested at this stage. The limitations which are inherent in this exercise are obvious. All we can do is read the material and compare it with the case that is being made in the new draft particulars. In a simple case this may be all that needs to be done in order to reach a clear view that the claim has no real prospect of succeeding. If one can reach that view, it follows as night follows day that all the usual fact-finding exercises of discovery, interrogation and cross-examination of witnesses will achieve no purpose and the claim should be struck out. But I am not persuaded this exceptional case falls into that category.
104. I agree that there is material in the documents that are already available to support the pleading in Schedule 2, of the new draft particulars that the Bank knew that before the grant of the full licence to BCCI SA that it was not entitled to rely on the Luxembourg regulator. Given that starting point, I cannot say that the claimants have no real prospect of proving that the Bank knew that their initial act in licensing BCCI SA was unlawful, that its licence and authorisation remained unlawful throughout the remaining three periods and that all subsequent omissions to revoke the licence and authorisation were affected by the same illegality. I have more difficulty with the question whether there is material to support the pleading in Schedule 3 that at the time of licensing the Bank knew that loss was probable or that it had the state of mind regarding loss to depositors and potential depositors that amounted to recklessness. There is no direct evidence of this in the available documents, and I am not confident that they contain any material which suggests that contemporary documentary evidence to this effect is likely to become available. At best for the claimants, it appears that is a matter which will have to be inferred from other evidence.
105. But it seems to me that, as events unfold, this part of the case gathers momentum and that the available material makes it clear that the Bank knew by April 1990 at the latest that, unless a rescue could be put in hand in time by the Abu Dhabi government, BCCI would collapse and that serious loss to depositors would then be inevitable. The pattern of events during this final period is complicated, as the majority in the Court of Appeal recognised: [2000] 2 WLR 15, 100F. For reasons already given I would leave out of account the fact, relied on by the majority at p 101E-F, that the conclusion in the Bingham report was that rescue was feasible and collapse not inevitable. In my opinion the documents alone do not tell the full story, and the question whether the Bank knew that loss to depositors was probable or was reckless in the relevant sense cannot be answered satisfactorily without hearing oral evidence.
106. I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Hobhouse that the overriding objective of dealing with cases justly includes dealing with them in a proportionate manner, expeditiously, fairly and without undue expense. As he says, each case is entitled only to an appropriate share of the court's resources. Account has to be taken of the need to allot resources to other cases. But I do not believe that the course which I favour offends against these important principles. The most important principle of all is that which requires that each case be dealt with justly. It may well be that the claimants, on whom the onus lies, will face difficulties in presenting their case. They must face the fact that each and every allegation of bad faith will be examined rigorously. A trial in this case will be lengthy and it will be expensive. There is only so much that astute case management can do to reduce the burdens on the parties and on the court. Nevertheless it would only be right for the claim to be struck out if it has no real prospect of succeeding at trial. I do not think that one should be influenced in the application of this test by the length or expense of the litigation that is in prospect. Justice should be even-handed, whether the case be simple or whether it be complex. It is plain that the situation in which the claimants find themselves was not of their own making, nor are they to be blamed for the volume and complexity of the facts that must be investigated. I would hold that justice requires that the claimants be given an opportunity to present their case at trial so that its merits may be assessed in the light of the evidence.
107. I have taken one other factor into account. The decision which your Lordships are being asked by the Bank to take is to give summary judgment in its favour on the entire claim. It would only be right to strike out the whole claim if it could be said of every part of it that it has no real prospect of succeeding. That would mean that even the latest depositors who were entrusting their money to BCCI SA up to the very end of the final period would be left without a remedy. I think that that is too big a step to take on the available material. Conversely, I consider that if one part of the claim is to go to trial it would be unreasonable to divide the history up and strike out other parts of it. A great deal of time and money has now been expended in the examination of the preliminary issues, and I think that this exercise must now be brought to an end. I would reject the Bank's application for summary judgment.
(7) the Bank's cross-appeal
108. The cross-appeal by the Bank is directed to the second and third of the three questions which in his order of 19 July 1995 Clarke J said should be tried as preliminary issues. The first question was whether the Bank is capable of being liable to the claimants for the tort of misfeasance in public office. That is the question to which the main part of this judgment has been directed. For the reasons which I have given I consider that it cannot be answered until the facts have been established at trial. The second and third questions were whether the claimants' alleged losses were caused in law by the acts or omissions of the Bank, and whether the claimants are entitled to recover for the tort of misfeasance in public office as existing or potential depositors. The Court of Appeal held that it would be premature to decide these points conclusively in the Bank's favour until the facts have been established; [2000] 2 WLR 15, 68-70. I respectfully agree. As I said earlier (see paragraph 34) the Bank, while reserving the right to pursue the issue at trial, accepts that it is capable of being liable for the tort to potential depositors and questions of fact are raised by the issue about causation which are unsuitable for summary determination at this stage.
(8) Conclusion and further procedure
109. For these reasons I would allow the appeal and I would dismiss the cross-appeal. I would set aside the order that the re-amended statement of claim be struck out, and I would give permission to the claimants to amend their particulars of claim in terms of the new draft particulars.
110. The claimants invited your Lordships to direct the Bank to serve an amended defence within two months of the date of this order and the claimants to serve a reply, if so advised, within six weeks of service of the amended defence, and to direct the parties to arrange a case management conference with the Commercial Court within four weeks of the date for service of the reply with a view to determining further progress of this action and establishing all necessary timetables and directions for bringing the case on for trial at the earliest date the Commercial Court considers feasible. These proposals seem to me to be entirely reasonable. Like Lord Steyn, I anticipate that the court will wish to exercise its powers of case management with a view to bringing the case to trial with due despatch in accordance with the overriding objective and that further delay due to the hearing of interlocutory applications will now be kept to a minimum. But on balance I think that it is preferable to leave it to the Commercial Judge in charge of the case to make the appropriate directions.
LORD HUTTON
My Lords,
111. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead and I gratefully adopt his account of the factual and statutory background to this appeal and of the course of the proceedings in the High Court and the Court of Appeal. I am in general agreement with his conclusions and with the reasons which he gives for them, but because of the importance of the issues which have arisen for decision I propose to state the reasons which have led me to the conclusion that the plaintiffs' appeal should be allowed and that the action should not be struck out.
112. In his first judgment dated 1 April 1996 Clarke J stated the ingredients of the tort of misfeasance in public office. In his second judgment dated 10 May 1996 the learned judge held that the amended statement of claim as pleaded at that date did not allege the necessary knowledge of, or recklessness as to, the probability of loss, and that accordingly if that statement of claim were not further amended the plaintiffs' claim would fail and should be dismissed. But the judge gave leave to the plaintiffs to apply to amend further the statement of claim. The plaintiffs then brought an application before the judge for leave to re-amend the statement of claim and by his third judgment dated 30 July 1997 the judge held that even if all the proposed amendments to the statement of claim were permitted the plaintiffs' claim was bound to fail. The judge stated, at pp 166-167:
- "I have reached the firm conclusion that on the material available at present the plaintiffs have no arguable case that the Bank dishonestly granted the licence to BCCI or dishonestly failed to revoke the licence or authorisation in circumstances when it knew, believed or suspected that BCCI would probably collapse. There is nothing in the Bingham report or in the documents which I have seen to support such a conclusion and there is much to contradict it."
Accordingly the judge ordered that the action be struck out, but the judge made it clear at p 169 that, but for the conclusion which he had reached that the plaintiffs' action was bound to fail, it is likely that he would have allowed all, or almost all, the proposed amendments to the statement of claim.
113. The Court of Appeal (Auld LJ dissenting) upheld the decision of Clarke J and delivering the joint judgment of himself and Robert Walker LJ, Hirst LJ stated [2000] 2 WLR 15, 101F:
- "The judge reached the firm conclusion, in his third judgment, that, on the material then available, the plaintiffs had no arguable case that the Bank dishonestly licensed BCCI SA or dishonestly failed to revoke the licence or authorisation in circumstances when it knew, believed or suspected that the company would probably collapse without being rescued. We agree with that conclusion. We also agree that, in all the circumstances of this extraordinary case, it is now for practical purposes inconceivable that new material would emerge of such significance as to alter that conclusion. The tort alleged is a tort of dishonesty, and the plaintiffs' claim must be rigorously assessed on their pleaded case and the evidential material shown to be available to support it."
In his dissenting judgment, at p 180F, Auld LJ stated:
- "As the authorities to which Hirst and Robert Walker LJJ have referred indicate, it is normally only in clear and obvious cases that a court should strike out a claim as incapable of proof at the interlocutory stage and before full discovery. In cases, such as this, of great legal and factual complexity, it requires a justified confidence that the plaintiffs' case is and will remain incapable of proof and most exceptional circumstances to justify stifling it at an early stage. For the reasons that I have given, I do not consider that the court can be confident that all the evidence material to Clark J's conclusion about the Bank's state of knowledge has been gathered in or, which is as important, properly tested."
114. In giving judgment on the legal issues relating to the nature of the tort of misfeasance in public office the House directed that the plaintiffs should prepare a new draft pleading ([2000] 2 WLR 1220, 1236E) and accordingly the plaintiffs have prepared and served a new pleading consisting of particulars of claim which, with a few additions, largely contain the allegations pleaded in the re-amended statement of claim and in the re-re-amendments which the plaintiffs sought leave to make from Clarke J.
115. Before the House in the present hearing the plaintiffs submitted that the new particulars of claim disclosed a cause of action on which they were entitled to proceed to trial. The Bank advanced two main submissions. The first was that the plaintiffs' claim, whether as formulated in the re-amended statement of claim or in the re-re-amendments which Clarke J considered in his third judgment, or as formulated in the new particulars of claim, disclosed no reasonable cause of action so that the action should remain struck out. The Bank's second submission was that the plaintiffs' claim, in whatever way it was formulated, was frivolous and vexatious and/or an abuse of process and on that ground also the action should remain struck out.
116. The issues which arose before Clarke J and the Court of Appeal as to whether the pleadings disclosed a reasonable cause of action and/or were frivolous and vexatious and/or an abuse of process were issues which were governed by Ord 18, r 19 (1)(a)(b) and (d) of the Rules of the Supreme Court. I think that in applications under the Rules of the Supreme Court a clear distinction was not always drawn between an application under Ord 18, r 19(1)(a) to strike out a statement of claim on the ground that it disclosed no reasonable cause of action and an application under Ord 18, r 19(1)(b) and (d) to strike out a statement of claim on the ground that it was frivolous or vexatious and/or an abuse of the process of the court, and, in practice, there were cases where it was difficult to draw or give effect to this distinction. But in a complex case such as the present one I think it is helpful to recognise the distinction.
117. The 1999 White Book stated at 18/19/10 with reference to r 19(1)(a):
- "A reasonable cause of action means a cause of action with some chance of success when only the allegations in the pleading are considered (per Lord Pearson in Drummond-Jackson v British Medical Association [1970] 1 WLR 688; [1970] 1 All ER 1094, CA). So long as the statement of claim or the particulars (Davey v Bentinck [1893] 1 QB 185) disclose some cause of action, or raise some question fit to be decided by a judge or a jury, the mere fact that the case is weak, and not likely to succeed, is no ground for striking it out (Moore v Lawson (1915) 31 TLR 418, CA; Wenlock v Moloney [1965] 1 WLR 1238; [1965] 2 All ER 871, CA); "
Therefore if a plaintiff would be entitled to judgment if he were successful in proving the matters alleged in his pleadings, the statement of claim could not be struck out under rule 19(1)(a) on the ground that he had no prospect of adducing evidence to prove the matters which he alleged. If a defendant wished to strike out a statement of claim and to obtain an order for the dismissal of the action on the ground that the plaintiff had no prospect of proving the case which he alleged in his statement of claim he had to do so under rule 19(1)(b) and/or (d). A case which illustrates this (although the application was to strike out, not a statement of claim, but a plea of justification in a defence) was the application made in McDonald's Corporation v Steel [1995] 3 All ER 615 where the Court of Appeal considered the correct approach to an application under Ord 18, r 19(d) to strike out a pleading for abuse of process and held, at p 623E-F, that the power to strike out was a draconian remedy which was to be employed only in clear and obvious cases where it is possible to say at an interlocutory stage and before full discovery that a particular allegation was incapable of being proved.
118. In the present case when Clarke J struck out the action he did so on the ground that even with all the proposed re-re-amendments the plaintiffs' claim was bound to fail and that in those circumstances it would be an abuse of the process or vexatious or oppressive to allow the action to proceed (see paragraph 6 and 7 at p 172 of his third judgment).
119. The applications before Clarke J and the Court of Appeal were governed by the Rules of the Supreme Court but those Rules have now been replaced by the Civil Procedure Rules. I think that rule 3.4 (2)(a) of the new Rules corresponds in a broad way to Ord 18, r 19(1)(a) and rule 3.4 (2)(b) and rule 24.2 (a)(i) correspond in a broad way to Ord 18, r 19(1)(b) and (d). Rule 3.4(2) provides:
- "The court may strike out a statement of case if it appears to the court—
- (a) that the statement of case discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing or defending the claim;
- (b) that the statement of case is an abuse of the court's process or is otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings;"
Rule 24.2(a)(i) provides:
- "The court may give summary judgment against a claimant or defendant on the whole of a claim or on a particular issue if—
- (a) it considers that—
- (i) that claimant has no real prospect of succeeding on the claim or issue;
120. The new particulars of claim, served pursuant to the direction of the House, were served after the new Civil Procedure Rules came into force, and therefore if Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal erred in their approach to the application to strike out the action the question whether the action should remain struck out falls to be determined by the House under the wording of the new Rules. In the present case I think it is desirable, as I have stated, to distinguish between the two grounds on which the Bank submits that the action should remain struck out. Using the terminology of the new Rules one ground is that the statement of case (looking only at the pleadings themselves) discloses no reasonable ground for bringing the claim (which I shall term "the attack on the pleadings point"), and the other ground is that taking into account the evidence available to the plaintiffs to adduce at a trial, they have no real prospect of succeeding on the claim (which I shall term "the no real prospect of success point").
The attack on the pleadings point
121. My Lords, the essential ingredients of the tort of misfeasance in public office were stated in the judgment of the House following the previous hearing [2000] 2 WLR 1220 and I do not propose again to restate those elements with precision. But it is clear that a plaintiff must prove (1) an abuse of the powers given to a public officer; (2) that the abuse was constituted by a deliberate act or deliberate omission by the public officer with knowledge that the act or omission was wrongful or with recklessness as to whether or not the act or omission was wrongful; (3) that the public officer acted in bad faith; and (4) that the public officer knew that his act or omission would probably injure the plaintiff or was reckless as to the risk of injury to the plaintiff. In addition the plaintiff must prove that the act or omission caused him loss, but issues of causation do not arise at this stage. As to the first and second matters to be proved, I consider that the particulars of claim sufficiently allege that the Bank deliberately abused its statutory powers in licensing BCCI and in failing to revoke the licence after it had been granted. Paragraph 33, for example, alleges:
- "33. No revocation of the licence under the 1979 Act The Bank, knowingly, deliberately contrary to the statutory scheme or recklessly indifferent to whether it was acting in accordance with the statutory scheme or wilfully disregarding the risk that it was not acting in accordance with the statutory scheme and in bad faith:
- 33.1 purported to conclude that it was still entitled to rely upon assurances from the LBC/IML and/or that it had no discretion or power to revoke the full licence when the Bank knew or was recklessly indifferent as to whether or wilfully disregarded the risk that, as was the case:
- 33.1.1 the criteria under paragraphs 7 (fit and proper), 8 (four eyes) and 10 (prudent manner) of Schedule 2 to the 1979 Act had not been fulfilled at the time of the grant of the full licence and remained unfulfilled at all times thereafter;
- 33.1.2 BCCI SA was illegally calling itself a bank contrary to subsection 36(1) of the 1979 Act;
- 33.1.3 BCCI SA had conducted and continued to conduct its affairs in a way which threatened the interests of its depositors;
- 33.1.4 the Bank's continued reliance upon assurances from the LBC/IML as to BCCI SA's management and financial soundness was unlawful,
- and the Bank further knew that the likely consequences were that depositors and potential depositors would suffer losses or the Bank wilfully disregarded the risk of the consequences or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences; and/or…"
122. Bad faith is an essential element in the tort of misfeasance. In accordance with a well established rule it is necessary that bad faith (or dishonesty - the term used in some authorities) should be clearly pleaded. In Davy v Garrett (1878) 7 Ch D 473, 489 Thesiger LJ said:
- "There is another still stronger objection to this statement of claim. The plaintiffs say that fraud is intended to be alleged, yet it contains no charge of fraud. In the Common Law Courts no rule was more clearly settled than that fraud must be distinctly alleged and as distinctly proved, and that it was not allowable to leave fraud to be inferred from the facts. It is said that a different rule prevailed in the Court of Chancery. I think that this cannot be correct. It may not be necessary in all cases to use the word 'fraud' - indeed in one of the most ordinary cases it is not necessary. An allegation that the defendant made to the plaintiff representations on which he intended the plaintiff to act, which representations were untrue, and known to the defendant to be untrue, is sufficient. The word 'fraud' is not used, but two expressions are used pointing at the state of mind of the defendant - that he intended the representations to be acted upon, and that he knew them to be untrue. It appears to me that a plaintiff is bound to show distinctly that he means to allege fraud. In the present case facts are alleged from which fraud might be inferred, but they are consistent with innocence. They were innocent acts in themselves, and it is not to be presumed that they were done with a fraudulent intention."
I would observe that the last two sentences in this passage have to be read together with the sentence which immediately precedes them.
In Belmont Finance Corporation Ltd v Williams Furniture Ltd [1979] Ch D 250, 268 A-C Buckley LJ stated:
- "In the present case, do the facts alleged in the statement of claim suffice to bring home to the defendants or any of them a charge that (a) the object of the alleged conspiracy was a dishonest one; and (b) that they actually knew, or must be taken to have known, that it was so?
- "An allegation of dishonesty must be pleaded clearly and with particularity. That is laid down by the rules and it is a well-recognised rule of practice. This does not import that the word 'fraud' or the word 'dishonesty' must necessarily be used: see Davy v Garrett, 7 Ch D 473, 489, per Thesiger LJ. The facts alleged may sufficiently demonstrate that dishonesty is allegedly involved, but where the facts are complicated this may not be so clear, and in such a case it is incumbent upon the pleader to make it clear when dishonesty is alleged. If he uses language which is equivocal, rendering it doubtful whether he is in fact relying on the alleged dishonesty of the transaction, this will be fatal; the allegation of its dishonest nature will not have been pleaded with sufficient clarity."
123. In the present case paragraphs 36, 37 and 38 of the particulars of claim allege:
- "36. Failure to supervise The Bank, knowingly, deliberately contrary to the statutory scheme or recklessly indifferent to whether it was acting in accordance with the statutory scheme or wilfully disregarding the risk that it was not acting in accordance with the statutory scheme and in bad faith failed in the respects set out in these particulars of claim to supervise either BCCI SA or BCCI Overseas when:
- 36.1 the Bank knew that it had a duty to supervise under the 1979 and 1987 Acts;
- 36.2 the Bank's motives in deliberately failing to supervise were those pleaded in paragraph 37;
- 36.3 the Bank knew that the consequences of BCCI SA and/or BCCI Overseas being unsupervised was that depositors and potential depositors would suffer losses or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences or wilfully disregarded the risk of the consequences.
- In support of these contentions the claimants will rely, prior to disclosure, on the facts and matters set out in Schedules 2 to 7.
- THE BANK'S MOTIVES FOR BREACHING ITS STATUTORY DUTIES
- 37. The motives of the Bank in acting as pleaded above were improper and unlawful and in the premises the Bank acted in bad faith. The Bank's motives were:
- 37.1 to avoid having to comply with its duty to make, review and, if necessary revise its own express evaluation of the relevant statutory criteria in relation to BCCI SA, the Bank at all times knowing or suspecting that such criteria were not satisfied (as pleaded above);
- 37.2 to avoid having to become the lead supervisor in relation to BCCI or the consolidated supervisor of the BCCI Group, even though it knew that it was the only supervisor capable of performing those roles;
- 37.3 to avoid the risks attaching to the Bank from taking on responsibility for becoming lead supervisor or in undertaking consolidated supervision of the BCCI Group including:
- 37.3.1 the risk of blame; and
- 37.3.2 the risk of Her Majesty's Treasury having to act as a lender of last resort;
- 37.4 to avoid the substantial political and diplomatic problems which would have been generated by the refusal or revocation of BCCI SA's licence or authorisation and the closure of its 45 branches in the United Kingdom;
- 37.5 as to the use of a bank name by BCCI, to perpetuate a situation, which the Bank had favoured since as early as 1978, that regardless of any statutory requirements, BCCI SA should continue to be permitted to use the word 'bank' as part of its corporate description in the United Kingdom;
- 37.6 to avoid having to comply with its statutory duty whereby it should have required BCCI Overseas forthwith to apply for and obtain a full licence under the 1979 Act or to cease trading in the United Kingdom.
- 38. The claimants' case is that in determining the Bank's motives the Bank must be considered in the round as the body made responsible by the 1979 and 1987 Acts for providing the supervisory regime mandated by those Acts for banks. The motives attributed to the Bank pleaded above are a matter of inference from the primary facts pleaded in Schedules 2 to 7. Further particulars will be given following disclosure."
124. In Armitage v Nurse [1998] Ch 241, 256G Millett LJ said:
- "It is not necessary to use the word 'fraud' or 'dishonesty' if the facts which make the conduct complained of fraudulent are pleaded; but, if the facts pleaded are consistent with innocence, then it is not open to the court to find fraud."
Later in his judgment at p 259G the learned Lord Justice said:
- "I am of opinion that, as at present drawn, the amended statement of claim does not allege dishonesty or any breach of trust for which the trustees are not absolved from liability by clause 15."
In Taylor v Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd (unreported, 21 July) 1999 Buxton LJ referred to the first observation of Millett LJ at p 256G and said:
- "That, however, was an observation about pleading, not about substance. If (unlike the pleader in our case) the claim does not expressly allege dishonesty, but stands on facts alone, those facts on their face will meet the requirement of a specific allegation of dishonesty only if they can bear no other meaning."
But in the present case, unlike in Armitage v Nurse, the pleader does expressly allege bad faith because paragraph 37 pleads that "the motives of the Bank in acting as pleaded above were improper and unlawful and in the premises the Bank acted in bad faith" and the paragraph sets out particulars in support of that allegation. In my opinion those particulars are not consistent with mere negligence.
125. I further consider that if a plaintiff clearly alleges dishonesty or bad faith and gives particulars, the statement of claim cannot be struck out under rule 3.4(2)(a) because the facts he pleads as giving rise to an inference of dishonesty or bad faith may at the trial, after a full investigation of the circumstances, be held not to constitute proof of that state of mind. If a defendant applies to strike out an action on the ground that the plaintiff has no prospect of adducing evidence at the trial to establish the case which he pleads the application should be brought under rule 3.4(2)(b) or rule 24.2(a)(1).
126. Mr Stadlen QC, for the Bank, submitted that the pleadings were defective because they did not allege that identified or identifiable bank officials took conscious decisions to do acts or to refrain from doing acts with the requisite guilty state of mind. I do not accept that submission. It is clear from the authorities that a plaintiff can allege misfeasance in public office against a body such as a local authority or a government ministry (see Dunlop v Woollahra Municipal Council [1982] AC 158 and Bourgoin SA v Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food [1986] QB 716). Therefore I consider that the plaintiffs are entitled in their pleadings to allege in the manner they have done misfeasance in public office against the Bank without having to give particulars of the individual officials whose decisions and actions they claim combined to bring about the misfeasance alleged.
127. The fourth element which the plaintiff must prove to establish the tort is that the public officer knew that his act or omission would probably injure the plaintiff or was reckless as to the risk of injury to the plaintiff. Mr Stadlen submitted that the judgments of the House after the earlier hearing established that to prove recklessness the plaintiff must not merely establish that the officer was aware that there was a risk of injury to the plaintiff but that he believed or suspected that his act or omission would probably injure the plaintiff and was recklessly indifferent to that probable injury. Mr Stadlen further submitted that in pleading recklessness in a number of places in the particulars of claim the plaintiffs had failed to plead that the Bank believed or suspected that its act or omissions would probably damage the plaintiffs and was recklessly indifferent to that injury and merely pleaded that the Bank "wilfully disregarded the risk of the consequences or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences": see for example the last four lines of paragraph 33.1 which I have set out above.
128. Having expressly pleaded that "the Bank further knew that the likely consequences were that depositors and potential depositors would suffer losses" the plaintiff then pleaded "or the Bank wilfully disregarded the risk of the consequences or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences", and in my opinion the distinction between so pleading and pleading that the Bank believed or suspected that its acts or omissions would probably damage the plaintiffs and was recklessly indifferent to that probable injury is such a fine one that an argument based on the distinction cannot constitute a ground for a strike-out under rule 3.4(2)(a). In British Airways Pension Trustees Ltd v Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons Ltd (1994) 72 BLR 26 the plaintiffs' statement of claim alleged that defects in a development constructed by McAlpine and designed by Project Design Partnership had diminished its value. The defendants applied to strike out the statement of claim on the ground (inter alia) that it failed to identify which of the alleged defects had caused which part of the alleged diminution in value. In the Court of Appeal Saville LJ stated, at pp 33C-34C:
- "The various defects alleged by the plaintiffs might not all be attributable to all the defendants, the cost of remedying the individual defects was not given and no attempt was made to ascribe to each defect the amount by which it contributed to the alleged diminution in value. At the same time I have some difficulty in seeing how the defendants could fairly be said to be seriously prejudiced by these omissions. The pleading alleges that the defects respectively attributable to McAlpine and PDP each caused the alleged diminution in value. The alleged defects themselves were set out in some detail, McAlpine and PDP had been on site for a considerable time after practical completion and so had their own means of knowledge of the alleged defects. Thus it seems to me that it can hardly be said that these defendants were in any real fashion placed in a position where they were unable to know what case they had to meet or were facing an unfair hearing. ….
- "The basic purpose of pleadings is to enable the opposing party to know what case is being made in sufficient detail to enable that party properly to prepare to answer it. To my mind it seems that in recent years there has been a tendency to forget this basic purpose and to seek particularisation even when it is not really required. This is not only costly in itself, but is calculated to lead to delay and to interlocutory battles in which the parties and the court pore over endless pages of pleadings to see whether or not some particular point has or has not been raised or answered, when in truth each party knows perfectly well what case is made by the other and is able properly to prepare to deal with it. Pleadings are not a game to be played at the expense of the litigants, nor an end in themselves, but a means to the end, and that end is to give each party a fair hearing."
And in considering the purpose of pleadings under the Civil Procedure Rules in McPhilemy v Times Newspapers Ltd [1999] 3 All ER 775, 793B Lord Woolf MR stated:
- "What is important is that the pleadings should make clear the general nature of the case of the pleader. This is true both under the old rules and the new rules."
129. In the present case where the plaintiffs plead that the Bank knew that the likely consequences were that depositors and potential depositors would suffer loss and then, in the alternative, plead recklessness, I do not consider that the omission to plead in the context of recklessness that the Bank believed or suspected that injury was likely could prejudice the Bank; and if the ultimate outcome of the trial were to depend on the precise elements necessary to constitute recklessness, I do not consider that the state of the pleadings would prejudice the Bank in advancing any arguments available to it.
The no real prospect of success point
130. The decision by Clarke J, upheld by the majority of the Court of Appeal, that the action was bound to fail and therefore should be struck out was based on two principal conclusions. One was that there was before him all the evidence which was at that time available to the plaintiffs and that there was no reasonable possibility of the plaintiffs obtaining more evidence in the future, whether by further investigation, discovery, cross-examination of the Bank's witnesses or otherwise which might enable them to succeed. The second conclusion was that on the basis of the evidence before him the plaintiff's claim was bound to fail (see pp 171-172 of Clarke J's third judgment).
131. It is apparent from the judgments of Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal that in ruling that the plaintiff's claim was bound to fail they took into account the findings and conclusions of Bingham LJ set out in his report. Thus at pp 37-38 of his third judgment Clarke J stated:
- "Mr Stadlen submits that there is no support anywhere in the Bingham report for the conclusion that the Bank acted dishonestly, or that it knew that it was acting unlawfully or that it suspected that its acts or omissions would probably cause loss to depositors or potential depositors. For the reasons already stated I shall focus only on the last of these, but I accept the submission that there is no statement in the report which gives any support for the conclusion that at any stage the Bank suspected that depositors and potential depositors would probably suffer loss as a result of the Bank's action or inaction. Yet, as stated on page iii of the covering letter to which I have already referred, it is clear that Bingham LJ was considering the Bank's state of mind at every stage. In my judgment, if Bingham LJ had formed the view that at any stage the Bank suspected that its action or inaction would probably injure depositors or potential depositors he would have said so. Thus, if he had thought that the Bank suspected that BCCI would probably collapse so that new depositors would probably lose their money at any stage of the story from 1979 to 1991 he would have said so.
- Yet, not only did he not say so, but his observations on the evidence are inconsistent with any such conclusion."
There are other passages in his judgment where it is clear that Clarke J was influenced by findings or conclusions arrived at by Bingham LJ, and these have been referred to by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead in his speech.
132. Bingham LJ is a judge of the greatest eminence and distinction and his report sets out the entire history of BCCI from its establishment in the United Kingdom until its liquidation and the Bank's relationship to it with the greatest clarity and with much detail. It was therefore inevitable that the plaintiffs would make use of the information contained in the report in drafting their statement of claim. However, notwithstanding the distinction of its author, it is clear that under well established principles the findings and conclusions of Bingham LJ as to the actions and motives of the Bank would be inadmissible on the hearing of the action: it would be the duty and responsibility of the trial judge to decide for himself, on the evidence which he heard, what were the actions and motives of the Bank. And notwithstanding that it appears that both before Clarke J and the Court of Appeal the plaintiffs themselves sought to rely on certain passages of the Bingham report which they thought supported their case, I consider that it was also impermissible for the judge and the majority of the Court of Appeal in deciding at this interlocutory stage whether there was no real prospect of the action succeeding to be influenced by the findings and conclusions of Bingham LJ. Therefore I am in respectful agreement with the observation of Auld LJ in his dissenting judgment [2000] 2 WLR 15, 180D:
- "In the circumstances, I am of the view that Clarke J was not entitled to treat Bingham LJ's report effectively as conclusive on the questions he, the judge, had to answer in this litigation …"
133. Therefore I am of the opinion that by taking into account the findings and conclusions of Bingham LJ, Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal erred in considering the issue whether the plaintiffs' claim was bound to fail and that accordingly the House must itself address its mind to the issue (using the terminology of rule 24.2(a)(i)) whether the plaintiffs have no real prospect of succeeding in their claim.
134. In Swain v Hillman [2000] 1All ER 91, 92 Lord Woolf MR said:
- "The words 'no real prospect of being successful or succeeding' do not need any amplification, they speak for themselves. The word 'real' distinguishes fanciful prospects of success or, as Mr Bidder QC submits, they direct the court to the need to see whether there is a 'realistic' as opposed to a 'fanciful' prospect of success."
And at p 95:
- "Useful though the power is under Part 24, it is important that it is kept to its proper role. It is not meant to dispense with the need for a trial where there are issues which should be investigated at the trial. As Mr Bidder put it in his submissions, the proper disposal of an issue under Part 24 does not involve the judge conducting a mini trial, that is not the object of the provisions; it is to enable cases, where there is no real prospect of success either way, to be disposed of summarily."
135. Mr Stadlen submitted that an action should be struck out if it was apparent that at the trial the plaintiff could adduce no evidence to establish the case which he pleaded and he relied on the judgment of Neill LJ in McDonald's Corporation v Steel [1995] 3 All ER 615, 621E:
- "It is true that a pleader must not put a plea of justification (or indeed a plea of fraud) on the record lightly or without careful consideration of the evidence available or likely to become available. But, as counsel for the plaintiffs recognised in the course of the argument, there will be cases where, provided a plea of justification is properly particularised, a defendant will be entitled to seek support for his case from documents revealed in the course of discovery or from answers to interrogatories.
- In recent times there has been what I regard as a sensible development whereby pleadings in libel actions are treated in the same way as pleadings in other types of litigation. It is therefore instructive to refer to a short passage in the judgment of May LJ in Steamship Mutual Underwriting Association Ltd v Trollope & Colls Ltd (1986) 6 Con LR 11, 27, where, on an application by a firm of structural engineers that the claim against them should be struck out, he said:
- 'In my opinion, to issue a writ against a party … when it is not intended to serve a statement of claim, and where one has no reasonable evidence or grounds on which to serve a statement of claim against that particular party, is an abuse of the process of the court.'
- Actions for defamation take many forms. The allegations complained about may vary from the moderately serious to the very grave. It may therefore be unwise to put forward a formula which will match all occasions. Nevertheless I am satisfied that before a plea of justification is included in a defence the following criteria should normally be satisfied: (a) the defendant should believe the words complained of to be true; (b) the defendant should intend to support the defence of justification at the trial; and (c) the defendant should have reasonable evidence to support the plea or reasonable grounds for supposing that sufficient evidence to prove the allegations will be available at the trial."
136. Mr Stadlen submitted that in this case the plaintiffs have no reasonable evidence to support their allegations of deliberate abuse of power in bad faith with knowledge of probable loss to the depositors or potential depositors, and he further submitted that the plaintiffs have no reasonable grounds for supposing that sufficient evidence to prove the allegations would be available at the trial. However in considering this submission it is necessary to take into account a later passage in the judgment of Neill LJ, at pp 622H-623A:
- "It is to be remembered, however, that the evidence on which a defendant may be entitled to rely at trial may take a number of different forms. It may include: (a) his own evidence and the evidence of witnesses called on his behalf, (b) evidence contained in Civil Evidence Act statements, (c) evidence contained in his own documents or in documents produced by third parties on subpoena, (d) evidence elicited from the plaintiff or the plaintiff's witnesses in the course of cross-examination, (e) answers to interrogatories and (f) evidence contained in documents disclosed by the plaintiff on discovery.
- "At the outset of the trial
- "I understand that it has become the practice in actions for defamation to consider at the outset of the trial whether some parts of the defence should be struck out on the basis that it has become apparent that some of the matters pleaded are not going to be supported by evidence. I can understand that in an appropriate case this is a sensible course which is likely to shorten the trial. On the other hand there may be cases where a defendant pleads some matter which he believes to be true but which he may still be unable to prove by admissible evidence otherwise than by eliciting an answer in cross-examination. Each case will have to be considered on its own facts."
137. Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal were of the opinion that Bingham LJ had conducted such a thorough examination of the Bank's dealings with BCCI that it was unrealistic to think that any further material of relevance would emerge and that accordingly the question whether there was reasonable evidence to support the plaintiff's case was to be determined on the basis of the evidence referred to in the Bingham report. Mr Stadlen submitted that Clarke J and the majority of the Court for Appeal were right to hold that that evidence provided no support for an allegation that the Bank had acted dishonestly or in bad faith or with knowledge of probable loss to depositors. I am unable to accept that submission. Both Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal found that by April 1990 the Bank knew that BCCI would probably collapse with consequential loss to depositors and potential depositors in the absence of a rescue package. Clarke J, referring to April 1990, said at pp 116-117 of his third judgment:
- "Bingham LJ concludes that he did not think that any informed reader of the report could have failed to read it as seriously impugning the honesty with which the group had been run. However, according to paragraph 2.186, with the possible exception of Mr Beverly, no-one did. Indeed in paragraph 2.187 Bingham LJ concludes that in April 1990 and for a number of months afterwards the Governors, the Board of Banking Supervision, Mr Quinn and Mr Barnes were unaware of the serious doubts thrown by Price Waterhouse on the integrity of the [b]ank's most senior management. Sir Patrick submits that that conclusion is incredible. He submits that senior representatives of the Bank must have appreciated that that was the position. I see the force of that submission, but, for present purposes, the question is not whether the Bank appreciated that there had been fraud within BCCI but whether it suspected that BCCI would probably not be rescued and nevertheless dishonestly failed to revoke its authorisation. It is plain that the Bank appreciated that in the absence of remedial steps BCCI would indeed probably collapse."
And in the judgment of the majority of the Court of Appeal Hirst LJ said at p 99G:
- "The report of 18 April 1990 was not therefore a totally unheralded shock for the Bank. Nevertheless it is highly significant as marking a date after which it would be impossible, in our judgment, to contend that there was no arguable case that the Bank was aware of a very serious and very immediate threat to depositors of BCCI SA. At this point, therefore, the prospect of a rescue operation being promoted by the Abu Dhabi ruling house, and the Bank's perception of the various possible outcomes, assumes central importance."
And, at p 101H:
- "Throughout the preceding four sections we have adopted the same approach as that taken by the judge, and asked ourselves whether the plaintiffs have an arguable case that the Bank actually foresaw BCCI's imminent collapse at each relevant stage. We have agreed with the judge's conclusion that all the evidence indicates that up to April 1990 it did not, and that thereafter it did, but properly relied on the prospect of a rescue. That is sufficient to dispose of the case in the Bank's favour."
138. In my opinion the Bank cannot validly contend that on the documentary evidence available to them the plaintiffs have no real prospect of succeeding in establishing that the Bank knowingly and in a deliberate way abused its statutory powers in failing to revoke BCCI's licence after it had been granted. A memorandum dated 19 October 1983 from an official in the Bank's Banking Supervision Division to a number of senior officials of the Bank states:
- "This note reviews our approach to the supervision of BCCI, arguing that our present approach fails to satisfy the requirements of the Banking Act and recommending that we should press BCCI for local incorporation of UK operations. …
- "However, these problems are less serious than the present deficiencies in our supervisory approach in the light of the Banking Act's requirements.
- "The problem with regard to the section 36 contraventions is more difficult, particularly with regard to the branches of BCCI SA, to which there seems no practicable alternative to turning a blind eye."
And in a note of a meeting of Bank officials dated 17 December 1985 after a team from the Bank had visited the BCCI offices in Leadenhall Street the following comment by an official is noted:
- "There is no doubt in my mind that BCCI has centralised its management, control and operations in the City. This is a UK-based bank, with its White House encompassing two buildings fronting Leadenhall Street and three at the rear. There is absolutely no way that we should continue the pretence that Luxembourg are the prime supervisors. Luxembourg is prehistoric; Grand Cayman is a tax haven; and it is the Bank of England who are the lender of last resort. If UK incorporation of the UK branch network means the movement of the Treasury Support Organisation from London to Abu Dhabi, the Bank must encourage Abedi all the way. This surely is the only route to effective supervision."
139. I observed in my speech after the earlier hearing [2000] 2 WLR 1220, 1266F-H that I considered that, in the context of misfeasance, "in bad faith" is a preferable term to "dishonesty". In relation to the element of bad faith the plaintiffs plead in paragraph 37 of the particulars of claim that the Bank's motives set out in that paragraph constitute bad faith. Lord Neill QC, for the plaintiffs, submitted that an inference can be drawn from a number of the Bank's documents that it was reluctant to face up to the difficulties and responsibilities involved in an adequate supervision of BCCI and that it placed its own interests before the discharge of its duty to protect depositors and that this constituted bad faith on its part. It is relevant to emphasise that this is the case made by the plaintiffs. They do not make the case that the officials of the Bank were dishonest, in the sense that they acted improperly for their own financial gain. Therefore I consider, with respect, that the point that it is inherently improbable that in the absence of some financial incentive bank officials would act dishonestly, does not assist the Bank's case.
140. Lord Neill referred (inter alia) to a letter dated 8 April 1987 from a senior official of the Bank to a senior official of the Commissariat au Controle des Banques in Luxembourg written after the Bank had been informed that it was no longer possible for Luxembourg to carry out the consolidated supervisory role which it had accepted in the last few years. In the letter the official said:
- "The precise formulation set out in your letter poses a particular problem for us. This is that having decided not to take a leading supervisory role, we believe that the incorporation of the 45 UK branches here, combined with the presence in London of a large part of BCCI's overall administration, is likely to draw us in practice into the position of lead supervisor which we seek to avoid. In those circumstances, our ability to do the job effectively would be even more restricted than if we had assumed the role officially from the outset. In any case we are not at all certain that we would feel able to grant a licence by applying the criteria under the UK Banking Act, to any part of the operation at this stage. This is because we have to be satisfied under our new legislation not only that an institution will be prudently run but that it will be run with integrity - and our experience with BCCI in the past make such a judgment difficult."
141. In respect of the need for the plaintiffs to show material to support their allegation that the Bank knew of probable loss to depositors or was reckless as to whether there would be loss to depositors, Lord Neill referred to certain paragraphs in the affidavit of a senior Bank official sworn in July 1991 in support of the Bank's petition to wind up BCCI. The official stated:
- "20. The Bank is seriously concerned that BCCI has been managed and may still be being managed in a dishonest and fraudulent manner. The Bank is and continues to be concerned that the true financial position of BCCI has been and continues to be concealed by BCCI from the Bank and other regulatory authorities which are part of the 'college'.. It appears from the Price Waterhouse report that the accounting records have completely failed and continue to fail to meet the standards required of institutions authorised under the Banking Act. It further appears that there is no proper or adequate system or controls for managing the business of BCCI. The management of BCCI have acted without integrity and with a lack of skill. Notwithstanding the fact that it might be said of some of the senior managers that they were not directly involved in the fraudulent activity described in the Price Waterhouse report, management have as a whole been involved in keeping that activity and its consequences concealed from the Bank and other regulatory authorities. As a result of the information provided to it, the Bank has no trust or confidence in the senior management of BCCI which is essential to the relationship between the regulator and the regulated bank.
- "21. As a supervisor of BCCI the Bank is concerned that the interest of depositors will be jeopardised if the affairs of BCCI are left in the hands of its managers and it has formed the view that the interest of depositors will be best served by the winding-up of BCCI. In these circumstances the Bank believes that it would be just and equitable to wind up BCCI. …
- "24. In April 1990 it became apparent that BCCI had a substantial portfolio of US $4 billion of problem loans. In the 1989 year-end accounts substantial provisions were first raised against a US $4 billion portfolio of problem loans in the group, many of which were booked in BCCI. On 22 May 1991 a financial support arrangement was entered into by BCCI whereby these problem loans were transferred to new companies which were either owned directly by the Government of Abu Dhabi, or if not, largely guaranteed by the Government of Abu Dhabi. In return for the loan assets BCCI received promissory notes in US$ and UAE Dhirams equivalent in face value to US $3,061 million. However, from the report it appears that the loan assets can be reassigned to BCCI in the event of any breach of warranty that the loan assets do not involve any activity which is criminal or illegal and which, if revealed might be expected to damage the international reputation of the Abu Dhabi Government. At a meeting held on 5 October 1990 the Abu Dhabi Government said that if fraud was detected there could be a serious problem about the continuation of the support of the Abu Dhabi Government. Whilst the Abu Dhabi Government has said that it has no present intention to reassign the loan assets, there must be a risk that it will do so. If it does, the problem portfolio will revert to BCCI. In July 1991 the Abu Dhabi Government indicated to Price Waterhouse that it was not prepared to commit itself to providing further funds for BCCI to m[e]et all its liabilities on an unqualified basis. Given the present uncertainty surrounding BCCI's liabilities it is fair to conclude that there is no real prospect of sufficient funds being made available within such time as the relevant regulators might require."
142. Lord Neill submitted that the concerns of the Bank set out in paragraphs 20 and 21 had been known to the Bank for a number of years, as evidenced by the letter dated 8 April 1987 to the official in Luxembourg in which the senior official of the Bank stated that the Bank had to be satisfied that BCCI would be run with integrity, "and our experiences with BCCI in the past make such a judgment difficult." Lord Neill also referred to a memorandum to the Governors of the Bank dated 15 July 1983 from a senior official of the Bank in which he said that the Bank's officials had become increasingly concerned about the ineffectiveness of the present arrangements for the overall supervision of BCCI and that he attached a note setting out possible ways of dealing with "what has now become, in our view, an unacceptable position." The note, which was headed "WHY HAS BCCI BECOME A PROBLEM? WHY IS ACTION NOW URGENTLY REQUIRED?", stated that it was clear that the principal place of BCCI was not Luxembourg but was, administratively, the United Kingdom and that being so, and in the light of the Luxembourg authorities' admission that their resources were no longer up to the task of supervising BCCI's operations, the Bank was in "a vulnerable position". The note further stated that the Bank's knowledge of the activities of BCCI in the United Kingdom and its limited knowledge of the BCCI group as a whole did not inspire confidence in the soundness of BCCI's worldwide operations. The note went on to state:
- "As noted, the present arrangements are wholly unsatisfactory and it is not therefore considered an option to sit back and do nothing. This leaves two basic choices:
- (a) to try to have BCCI closed down, either worldwide or just the UK region;
- (b) to arrange for its supervision on a satisfactory basis."
Lord Neill further referred to a paper of the Board of Banking Supervision dated 3 September 1987 which stated that at their last meeting they had expressed concern about whether the UK depositors with BCCI SA were receiving adequate protection from the supervisory regime in place, or in prospect. The Board asked whether the UK depositors might not be better protected if BCCI were only permitted to take deposits in the UK via a UK subsidiary. They questioned whether the formation of such a subsidiary would increase the "moral hazard" of the UK supervisors in relation to the whole BCCI group and whether, even if it did, the interests of the UK depositors should not be paramount. The paper went on to state that the cause of the concern did not stem from any obvious weakness in the BCCI group. The concern was rather one of scepticism towards a large, shadowy and swift growing bank with no natural geographic base. The paper then stated:
- "The BCCI group is frequently subject to rumours which suggest that it or its clients operate at the margin of legality. Many observers accordingly have developed a gut feeling that the bank might suddenly run into serious difficulties without warning. The fact that so much of the group's business is booked in centres where supervision is less professional, particularly in relation to the type of business which BCCI undertakes, makes the absence of warning all the more likely."
Lord Neill submitted that in July 1983, in September 1987 and in April 1990 the Bank took no steps to arrange for supervision of BCCI on a satisfactory basis but was reckless as to the serious risk of loss to depositors.
143. There are passages in the documents which support the Bank's case that whilst, prior to April 1990, it had concerns about the soundness of BCCI's operations, nonetheless it recognised that its overriding duty was to protect the interests of depositors and that its decisions and its conduct towards BCCI were intended to discharge that duty, so that the allegation of bad faith on its part cannot be established. Thus in the note sent to the Governors of the Bank dated 15 July 1983 its author states:
- "The closure route could only be pursued if it could be shown, with reasonable certainty, that the group's operations were fundamentally unsound; and that continued existence posed a greater threat to depositors' money than a winding up. Without a very wide ranging investigation and the fullest co-operation of other supervisory authorities it would not be possible to state, categorically, that the group's operations are unsound to the extent of endangering depositors."
But at this stage in the proceedings a court is not concerned to try to assess which side will probably succeed if there is a trial: the question is whether there is material which shows that there are issues which should be investigated at a trial, and in my opinion the material does show this.
144. As regards the prospect from April 1990 onwards of a rescue operation by the Abu Dhabi Government I would not take the view that the plaintiffs have no real prospect of establishing that the Bank knew that it was probable, or was reckless as to the probability, that that Government, notwithstanding its stated willingness to rescue BCCI, would not commit itself fully to meet all its liabilities as more information became available as to the extent of its liabilities and as to the dishonesty of its managers. In differing from the opinion of Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal that the plaintiffs have no real prospect of success, I take into account two further considerations. One is that I think that it is reasonably possible that further material may become available to the plaintiffs before trial, and I am in respectful agreement with the view of Auld LJ, at p 180B of his judgment:
- "In addition to the different function of Bingham LJ's inquiry from the more focused issues for determination in this litigation, there are several obvious disadvantages of his procedure when compared with the court's process for determining the truth of the matter and its legal significance. His was not a statutory inquiry, so he had no power to compel the attendance of witnesses or require the production of documents; he heard the evidence of some, but not all, relevant and important players in the story; there was no counsel to the inquiry and no opportunity for adversarial discovery, interrogation or cross-examination of witnesses; and, as I have said, he acknowledged that most of his criticisms and a number of his factual conclusions were challenged, the validity of such challenges not capable of being tested on appeal.
- "In the circumstances, I am of the view that Clarke J was not entitled… to conclude, as he did, that all the available material evidence on those questions had been gathered in. Given the greater generality of the questions in the Bingham inquiry, the limitations of it as a fact-finding exercise when compared with litigation, his acknowledgement of a number of challenges to some of his factual conclusions and the emergence of additional material since the inquiry indicating the Bank's state of knowledge as to the Gokal unrecorded loans, I can see no basis for Clarke J's confidence in this extraordinary and complex case for concluding that Bingham LJ had seen and fully tested all the material evidence available or likely to become available on the issues confronting the court in this case."
145. Secondly, I consider that the material already available to the plaintiffs provides reasonable grounds for thinking that they may be able to advance their case by the cross-examination of the Bank's officials.
146. In McDonald's Corporation v Steel [1995] 3 All ER 615 Neill LJ recognised that the prospect of evidence emerging on cross-examination was a matter to be taken into consideration. Mr Stadlen relied on the judgment of Chadwick LJ in Jarvis v Hampshire County Council The Times 23 November 1999; Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Transcript No 1908 of 1999 where he said, at p 35:
- "it is an abuse of the process of the court to make allegations of [dishonesty and deliberate abuse of power] in circumstances in which they cannot be supported by particulars; no less so when they are inconsistent with the substantial documentary material which is available. It is not enough to assert, as counsel for the claimant did assert before us, that - if the matter were allowed to go to trial - something might emerge through cross-examination. That is not a proper basis on which to make allegations of dishonesty. The judge was right to strike out those allegations."
147. But the assessment whether it is reasonable to take the view that evidence may emerge in cross-examination depends on the particular facts of the case. In Jarvis v Hampshire County Council it was clear that the allegations were groundless and could not be given any substance by the cross-examination of the defendant's witnesses. But in the present case where there is an arguable case that the Bank had increasing concern about BCCI for a number of years prior to April 1990 and knew from April 1990 onwards of the imminent collapse of BCCI unless there was a rescue, I think that justice requires that the plaintiffs, after discovery and interrogation, should have the opportunity to cross-examine the Bank's witnesses as to their concerns before 1990 and as to their belief from April 1990 onwards that there would be a rescue operation.
148. The fact that a plaintiff does not have direct evidence as to the belief or foresight or motives of the defendant is not in itself a reason to strike out the action. In Taylor v Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd the plaintiff alleged dishonest breach of trust and the defendant applied for the dismissal of the claim without trial under rule 24.2(a)(i). Upholding the decision of Carnwath J to dismiss the application Buxton LJ stated:
- "[Counsel for the defendant] appeared at one stage to argue that the case must be made good by direct evidence, and could not rely, as it does, on inference. If that was the submission, I cannot agree with it. Where the motives or knowledge of a party is in issue, it may often be necessary to rely on inference rather than direct statements or admissions by that party. There is nothing objectionable in principle in that, however much an inference may be less cogent than an admission. Nor is it right that, in drawing inferences, a court can only infer this form of dishonesty if the primary evidence admits of no other explanation. That puts the test too high. The process of reasoning should be constrained only by the court's appreciation of the seriousness of the charge and the substantiality of the evidence therefore necessary to make it good."
149. At p 91F of their judgment the majority of the Court of Appeal stated:
- "Were officials of the Bank to give evidence which was fully tested by cross-examination in the adversarial process of a trial, it is not merely possible, but even likely, that a clearer and somewhat different picture would emerge as to the Bank's corporate state of mind from time to time, as constituted by the states of mind of a small number of its responsible officials. But we would agree that there is no realistic possibility that the picture which emerged would be fundamentally different. In that respect the Bingham report is, despite its relatively informal status, an invaluable aid to distinguishing between what is a practical possibility and what is fanciful or inconceivable."
I am in full agreement with the first sentence of that passage, but I am, with respect, unable to agree with the last two sentences and I do not share the majority's confidence that though in cross-examination it is likely that a somewhat different picture would emerge, there is no realistic possibility that a fundamentally different picture would emerge.
150. The Bank's application has been to strike out the entire action. The Bank's case that the plaintiffs have no reasonable prospect of success can be more strongly advanced in respect of the allegations relating to the earlier part of the history of the Bank's dealings with BCCI. But having regard to the extent to which the allegations in respect of the entire period from 1979 to 1991 are interwoven and interrelated I consider that it would not be appropriate to consider striking out certain parts of the claim and that the entire action should be permitted to proceed to trial.
151. Because of the large number of documents which were referred to by counsel and the detailed and lengthy submissions which were advanced to the House I have thought it right to state my views at much greater length than is usual when an appellate court considers a strike out application, particularly when the appellate court decides that the action should proceed to trial. But I wish to state my agreement with the observation of my noble and learned friend Lord Steyn as to the duty of the trial judge in paragraph 8 of his speech. The judge will have to decide the case after the examination and cross-examination of witnesses on the evidence which he hears and he should not be influenced by any parts of the speeches of the House in this hearing which may appear to express any opinion on the facts of the case.
152. Accordingly for the reasons which I have given I would allow this appeal. I would dismiss the Bank's cross-appeal for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead and I would make the order proposed by him.
LORD HOBHOUSE OF WOODBOROUGH
My Lords,
153. It has been estimated that the trial of this action will occupy a whole year; I sincerely hope that this is too pessimistic. But, on any view, the continuation of the action will involve the application of very substantial resources both at the trial and in preparation for it by both of the parties and the system of justice. The volume of paper, forensic and evidential, is already formidable and the events which will have to be trawled over extend over some 15 years. The investigation of those events gave rise to a Report (the Bingham Report: 1992 HC Paper 198) which runs to 218 printed pages together with 8 volumes of (unpublished) appendices recounting the history in greater detail. It was thus understandable that it should have been thought right to examine whether such a trial and such proceedings were really appropriate and necessary in order to determine the just outcome to the parties' dispute. Indeed, under Part 1 of the Civil Procedure Rules now in force it is the overriding objective, and the duty of the courts and the parties, that cases should be dealt with justly and that this includes dealing with cases in a proportionate manner, expeditiously and fairly, without undue expense and by allotting only an appropriate share of the court's resources while taking into account the need to allot resources to other cases. This represents an important shift in judicial philosophy from the traditional philosophy that previously dominated the administration of justice. Unless a party's conduct could be criticised as abusive or vexatious, the party was treated as having a right to his day in court in the sense of proceeding to a full trial after having fully exhausted the interlocutory pretrial procedures.
154. There were limited exceptions to this traditional approach. One was the RSC O.14 procedure for summary judgment. This was not a procedure for an informal trial; it was a procedure for enabling judgment to be entered for the plaintiff where there was no issue to be tried, in the words of the rule, no "issue or question in dispute which ought to be tried" or "other reason" why there ought to be a trial. It was to avoid delaying tactics on the part of a defendant and enable speedy judgment to be given for the plaintiff where that was appropriate and just notwithstanding that the defendant asserted that he had a defence. One of the court's powers under O.14 was to order the defendant to pay money into court as a condition of being permitted to defend. O.14 was available to the plaintiff alone; there was no equivalent procedure for summary judgment in favour of the defendant This procedure was not the same as the striking out jurisdiction which had two aspects. One was the striking out of a party's pleading (or part of it) because the conduct of the party was objectionable, ie abusive or vexatious. For this purpose evidence was relevant and admissible. The other was the demurrer procedure which had completely different origins and served a different purpose. It derived from the formal distinction between law and fact. It provided a mechanism for testing the propositions of law upon which the party (plaintiff or defendant) was relying; it was decided upon the pleadings alone and no evidence was admissible. The court could in its discretion deal with the issue of law as a matter of striking out, or by directing the trial of a preliminary point of law, or by directing that the decision of the point of law should be left over to the full trial. In principle, though not always in practice, the striking out procedure should be used only where the point of law was not reasonably arguable. Warnings against the inappropriate use of the striking out procedure to decide arguable points of law were given by Lords Templeman and Mackay in Williams & Humbert v W & H Trade Marks [1986] AC 368, 435-6 and 441; but the motive of simplifying procedures and saving costs was applauded and may, in the end, show that the procedure adopted was appropriate.
155. Another exception in practice was the policy of the Commercial Court to assist the expeditious and efficient determination of disputes of commercial parties by adopting relatively informal procedures, usually at an early stage of the case, to identify the real points at issue and, by deciding them, enable the dispute to be resolved. Often this was an aspiration rather than a reality. Commercial disputes often involve lengthy and costly investigations and trials which defeat these aspirations. At times commercial litigation has been allowed to drift into over elaborate and drawn out procedures which overlook any other priority than investigating every nook and cranny and ensuring that every angle receives the full forensic exposure. In Ashmore v Corporation of Lloyd's [1992] 1 WLR 446 at pp. 453-4, Lord Templeman objected strenuously to the practice of taking "every point conceivable and inconceivable without judgment and discrimination" and exhorted judges and appellate courts to control the conduct of proceedings. Lord Roskill agreed with him (at p.448), saying:
- "The Court of Appeal appear to have taken the view that the plaintiffs were entitled of right to have their case tried to conclusion in such manner as they thought fit and if necessary after all the evidence on both sides had been adduced. With great respect, like my noble and learned friend, I emphatically disagree. In the Commercial Court and indeed in any trial court it is the trial judge who has control of the proceedings. It is part of his duty to identify the crucial issues and to see they are tried as expeditiously and as inexpensively as possible. ..... Litigants are not entitled to the uncontrolled use of a trial judge's time. Other litigants await their turn. …"
156. There is always an exercise of judgment to be undertaken by the judge whether the perceived short-cut will turn out to have been beneficial and, inevitably in a proportion of cases expectations will be confounded. Caution is required. But it is simplistic to suppose that in complex litigation the exercise should never be attempted. The volume of documentation and the complexity of the issues raised on the pleadings should be the subject of critical scrutiny and should not without more deter the judge from considering whether it is really necessary to commit the parties and the court to a lengthy trial and all the preparatory steps which that will involve. Indeed it can be submitted with force that those are just the sorts of case which most strongly cry out for the exclusion of anything that is unnecessary for the achievement of a just outcome for the parties.
157. The present case illustrates these considerations. The Commercial Judge was faced with an action dependant upon a cause of action of which the parameters were not wholly certain and a statement of claim which may or may not have disclosed a case sufficient in law to enable the plaintiffs to succeed. He ordered the trial of preliminary questions of law. He was clearly right to do so even though the decision of those questions has led to appeals to your Lordships' House. However difficulties then arose with the plaintiffs' pleadings. At each level the plaintiffs have re-pleaded their case to accommodate the fresh thinking about the elements of the tort of misfeasance in public office. Further, the courts at each level have been called on to adjudicate upon the proposed revised pleading, your Lordships included. This has led to an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Any skilful pleader should be able to draft a pleading which sufficiently makes the minimum allegations to support the legal definition of the tort and I have detected no lack of skill in the lawyers acting for either side in this litigation. The question then becomes whether the particulars given provide realistic support for the primary allegations. This has in turn led to a detailed examination both in the courts below and before your Lordships of these allegations. I will have to comment upon the suitability of that course in your Lordships' House. It was probably inevitable before the judge and may have been so before the Court of Appeal where questions of leave to amend were also debated. It was complicated in the Court of Appeal by the fact that Auld LJ did not agree with the majority on the law. Before the judge and in the Court of Appeal the decision was given on the basis of the Rules of the Supreme Court not the Civil Procedure Rules.
158. This leads me back to the CPR. As previously noted, Part 1 adopts a philosophy similar to that enunciated in Ashmore v Lloyd's. It is followed through into the new version of RSC O.14. It is Part 24. It authorises the court to decide a claim (or a particular issue) without a trial. Unlike O.14, it applies to both plaintiffs (claimants) and the defendants. It therefore can be used in cases such as the present where the application for judgment without trial is being made by the defendant. The court may exercise the power where it considers that the "claimant has no real prospect of succeeding on the claim" and "there is no other reason why the case or issue should be disposed of at a trial". The concluding phrase corresponds to the similar phrase used in RSC O.14 r.3(1) and has not been relied upon in the present case. The important words are "no real prospect of succeeding". It requires the judge to undertake an exercise of judgment. He must decide whether to exercise the power to decide the case without a trial and give a summary judgment. It is a 'discretionary' power, ie one where the choice whether to exercise the power lies within the jurisdiction of the judge. Secondly, he must carry out the necessary exercise of assessing the prospects of success of the relevant party. If he concludes that there is "no real prospect", he may decide the case accordingly. I stress this aspect because in the course of argument counsel referred to the relevant judgment of Clarke J as if he had made "findings" of fact. He did not do so. Under RSC O.14 as under CPR Part 24, the judge is making an assessment not conducting a trial or fact-finding exercise. Whilst it must be remembered that the wood is composed of trees some of which may need to be looked at individually, it is the assessment of the whole that is called for. A measure of analysis may be necessary but the 'bottom line' is what ultimately matters. Part 24 includes provisions covering various ancillary matters, at what stage the application can be made (24.4), the filing of evidence (24.5) and supplementary powers of the court (24.6). The Practice Direction which was originally appended filled out some of what is in the rules.
- "4.2 Where a defendant applies for judgment in his favour on the claimant's claim, the court will give that judgment if either:
- (1) the claimant has failed to show a case which, if unanswered,
would entitle him to judgment, or
- (2) the defendant has shown that the claim would be bound to be
dismissed at trial.
- "4.3 Where it appears to the court possible that a claim or defence may succeed but improbable that it will do so, the court may make a conditional order as described below."
The criterion which the judge has to apply under Part 24 is not one of probability; it is absence of reality. The majority in the Court of Appeal used the phrases "no realistic possibility"and distinguished between a practical possibility and "what is fanciful or inconceivable". ([2000] 2 WLR p.91G) Although used n a slightly different context these phrases appropriately express the same idea. Part 3 of the CPR contains similar provisions in relation to the court's case management powers. These include explicit powers to strike out claims and defences on the ground, among others, that the statement of case discloses no reasonable ground for bringing or defending the claim.
159. Before your Lordships it was accepted by counsel that this part of the appeal should be decided under CPR Part 24 applying the criterion "no real prospect of success". An exchange of correspondence has confirmed this. (A similar criterion is also appropriate where there is an application for leave to amend to add a new case.) Recent statements in the Court of Appeal concerning Part 24 bear repetition:
- "The words 'no real prospect of being successful or succeeding' do not need any amplification, they speak for themselves. The word 'real' distinguishes fanciful prospects of success or, as [counsel] submits, they direct the court to the need to see whether there is a 'realistic' as opposed to a 'fanciful' prospect of success."
- "It is important that a judge in appropriate cases should make use of the powers contained in Part 24. In doing so he or she gives effect to the overriding objectives contained in Part 1. It saves expense; it achieves expedition; it avoids the court's resources being used up on cases where this serves no purpose and, I would add, generally, that it is in the interests of justice. If a claimant has a case which is bound to fail, then it is in the claimant's interests to know as soon as possible that that is the position." Swain v Hillman [2001] 1 All ER 91, 92, 94, Lord Woolf MR
- "The CPR are a procedural code with the overriding objective of enabling the court to deal with cases justly including saving expense and ensuring that it is dealt with expeditiously and fairly. The court must seek to give effect to the overriding objective when it exercises any power given to it or interprets any rule. I take this into account when considering the application under Part 24.2. … [The language of Part 3.4] is very akin to that in the now extinct RSC O.18 & 19 and under which this application was commenced (and as good as succeeded) at the first hearing. This Part includes 'a claim which raises an unwinnable case where continuance of the proceedings is without any possible benefit to the respondent and would waste resources on both sides'." Sinclair v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire and Anor (A2/2000/2075), CA, 12 December 2000, Otton LJ at p 15. (and see Harris v Bolt Burdon 2000 CPLR 9)
There is no point in allowing claims to proceed which have no real prospect of success, certainly not in proceeding beyond the stage where their hopelessness has clearly become apparent.
160. The difficulty in the application of the criterion used by Part 24 is that it requires an assessment to be made in advance of a full trial as to what the outcome of such a trial would be. The pre-trial procedures give the claimant an opportunity to obtain additional evidence to support his case. The most obvious of these is discovery of documents but there is also the weapon of requesting particulars or interrogatories and the exchange of witness statements may provide a party with additional important material. Therefore the courts have in the present case recognised that they must have regard not only to the evidence presently available to the plaintiffs but also to any realistic prospect that that evidence would have been strengthened between now and the trial. Indeed, it was the submission of Mr Stadlen QC for the defendants that Clarke J had applied the right test when he said:
- "In my judgment the question in the instant case is whether the Bank has persuaded the court that the plaintiffs' case is bound to fail on the material at present available and that there is no reasonable possibility of evidence becoming available to the plaintiff, whether by further investigation, discovery, cross-examination or otherwise sufficiently to support their case and to give it some prospect of success. If the Bank discharges that burden, it will follow that the plaintiffs' claim is bound to fail. In that event to allow the action to proceed would serve no useful purpose. It would only involve the expenditure of time and money - in this case a very great deal of both. Neither party would have any legitimate interest in such expenditure because it could not benefit either." (p.6-7)
It is possible that this test, in its reference to cross-examination, may be rather too favourable to the plaintiffs. It is derived from what was said in relation to a plea of justification by Neill LJ in McDonald's Corporation v Steel [1995] 3 AER 615, a defamation action. He included cross-examination no doubt because in a defamation action, although the burden of proving justification is upon the defendant, the publisher of the libel, it is normal for the plaintiff to call his evidence first; justification is a defence. Where an allegation of dishonesty is being made as part of the cause of action of the plaintiff, there is no reason why the rule should not apply that the plaintiff must have a proper basis for making an allegation of dishonesty in his pleading. The hope that something may turn up during the cross-examination of a witness at the trial does not suffice. It is of course different if the admissible material available discloses a reasonable prima facie case which the other party will have to answer at the trial.
161. The judge's assessment has to start with the relevant party's pleaded case but the enquiry does not end there. The allegations may be legally adequate but may have no realistic chance of being proved. On the other hand, the limitations in the allegations pleaded and any lack of particularisation may show that the party's case is hopeless. The tort of misfeasance in public office is a tort which involves bad faith and in that sense dishonesty. It follows that to substantiate his claim in this tort, first in his pleading and then at the trial, a plaintiff must be able to allege and then prove this subjectively dishonest state of mind. The law quite rightly requires that questions of dishonesty be approached more rigorously than other questions of fault. The burden of proof remains the civil burden - the balance of probabilities - but the assessment of the evidence has to take account of the seriousness of the allegations and, if that be the case, any unlikelihood that the person accused of dishonesty would have acted in that way. Dishonesty is not to be inferred from evidence which is equally consistent with mere negligence. At the pleading stage the party making the allegation of dishonesty has to be prepared to particularise it and, if he is unable to do so, his allegation will be struck out. The allegation must be made upon the basis of evidence which will be admissible at the trial. This common sense proposition has recently been re-emphasised by the Court of Appeal in Medcalf v Mardell (A3/2000/6456) 24 November 2000, in which Peter Gibson LJ said (§40): "The material evidence must be evidence which can be put before the court to make good the allegation." Evidence which cannot be used in court cannot be relied upon to justify the making of the allegation of dishonesty. I mention this because it shows the principle to be applied and not because there is any suggestion in the present case that there is any inadmissible material which would support allegations of dishonesty in the present case. It is normally to be assumed that a party's pleaded case is the best case he can make (or wishes to make). Therefore, in the present case, the particulars given provide a true guide to the nature of the case being made by the plaintiffs (claimants).
162. I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Hope that in substance Clarke J asked himself the right questions and that, as he expressed it, he directed himself correctly as to the relevance of the Bingham Report. My noble and learned friend and those who agree with him are however critical of the actual use made by Clarke J and the majority of the Court of Appeal of the Report. I consider that with minor exceptions these criticisms are not fair to Clarke J nor to Hirst and Robert Walker LJJ. The relevant exercise was as I have said earlier not one of making findings of fact or comparable to a trial on admissible evidence. It was to make a predictive assessment. To use the Report as an aid was clearly appropriate and proper. Further, as the plaintiffs themselves said, their pleading and its particularisation was substantially taken from the facts set out in the Report. They were using the Report to plead their case: "With one principal exception, the statement of claim is pleaded on the basis of the Bingham Report." (Clarke J at p.48) It was therefore not only permissible but also pertinent to compare their selection from the history recounted in the Report with the whole and the conclusions drawn in the Report. If the plaintiffs seek to infer bad faith which Bingham LJ declined to infer or even contradicted, is it realistic to suppose that a judge will hereafter be persuaded to do so? The Report is in reality at the present stage the context in which the plaintiffs' particulars must be read and their viability assessed. The approach of Clarke J was careful and fair to the plaintiffs. He distinguished between the presently available material and that which might become available in the future (pp.166-9). He said:
- "I have reached the firm conclusion that on the material available at present the plaintiffs have no arguable case that the bank dishonestly granted the licence to BCCI or dishonestly failed to revoke the licence or authorisation in circumstances when it knew, believed or suspected that BCCI would probably collapse. There is nothing in the Bingham Report or in the documents which I have seen to support such a conclusion and there is much to contradict it.
- . . .
- "There is nothing in [the Report] which gives reasonable grounds for supposing that there might be other evidence which might in the future support the plaintiffs' case. In these circumstances I accept Mr Stadlen's further submission that there is no realistic possibility of more evidence becoming available, whether by further investigation, discovery, cross-examination or otherwise, which might throw light upon the state of mind of the bank or any of its relevant officials during the period in which BCCI was operating."
He therefore concluded that the plaintiff's case would be bound to fail and that he could see no justification for allowing the action to continue: "To do so would be to require an enormous expenditure of time and money to no avail." For myself, I see nothing to criticise in this methodology or chain of reasoning. The critical matter is whether one agrees with his assessment of the inevitability of failure. Were this appeal simply about whether Clarke J had misdirected himself or acted improperly in some way in the exercise of his discretion, I would regard it as improper to allow the appeal. But that is not the manner in which this appeal has been argued. The defendants have accepted that your Lordships' House should reassess the decision to dismiss the plaintiffs' claim using CPR 24 and it is to that that I now turn albeit with the apprehension that your Lordships may have been over influenced by the plaintiffs' submissions about the relevance of the Report.
The cause of action:
163. This was the subject of the earlier hearing and decision of your Lordships, [2000] 2 WLR 1220. It is easy to forget that the reason why the plaintiffs have to rely upon the tort of misfeasance in public office is that they cannot allege that the defendants owed them a duty of care. If the plaintiffs were able to rely upon the tort of negligence, their claim would be easy to formulate and, whether or not it would ultimately succeed, would undoubtedly have to go to trial. But, in the present context, to formulate and sustain a claim in the tort of misfeasance in public office is not straightforward, hence a need to have regard to its constituents.
164. In the speeches of your Lordships, in which I joined, delivered in May of last year, the essential constituents of that tort were explained. The tort is exceptional in that it is necessary to prove the requisite subjective state of mind of the defendant in relation not only to his own conduct but also its effect on others. That state of mind is one equivalent to dishonesty or bad faith and knowledge includes both direct knowledge and what is sometimes called 'blind eye' knowledge. ('Blind eye' knowledge has since been discussed in different contexts by your Lordships in Manifest Shipping v Uni-Polaris Shipping [2001] 2 WLR 170 and White v White [2001] UKHL/9.) These features are referred to in the speeches.
- "It involves bad faith inasmuch as the public officer does not have an honest belief that his act is lawful." "The [19th century] decisions laid the foundation of the modern tort; they established the two different forms of liability; and revealed the unifying element of conduct amounting to an abuse of power accompanied by subjective bad faith." (Lord Steyn at p.1231)
- "My Lords, I consider that dishonesty is a necessary ingredient of the tort and it is clear from the authorities that in this context dishonesty means acting in bad faith." (Lord Hutton at p.1266)
- "The official concerned must be shown not to have had an honest belief that he was acting lawfully;" (Lord Hobhouse at p.1269)
- "The policy underlying it is sound: reckless indifference to consequences is as blameworthy as deliberately seeking such consequences. It can therefore now be regarded as settled law that an act performed in reckless indifference as to the outcome is sufficient to ground the tort in its second form." (Lord Steyn at p.1232)
- "The official does the act intentionally being aware that it risks directly causing loss to the plaintiff or an identifiable class to which the plaintiff belongs and the official wilfully disregards that risk. … His recklessness arises because he chooses wilfully to disregard that risk." "Subjective recklessness comes into the formulation at the first and last stage because it is in law tantamount to knowledge and therefore gives rise to the same liability:" (Lord Hobhouse at p.1270)
165. Having carefully considered the submissions of the parties on both sides, the material which has been placed before us, what further material may reasonably be expected to become available to the plaintiffs before the time of the trial and the judgments of the courts below, I have come to the conclusion that the appeal should be dismissed. Like my noble and learned friend Lord Millett, my assessment is that the plaintiffs' claim does not have a real prospect of success. The majority of your Lordships are however of a different view and would allow the appeal and direct that the case proceed to a full trial on the alleged liability in tort. Under these circumstances, whilst it is my duty to state what my decision would have been and briefly give my reasons, it is inappropriate that I should say anything which will prejudge the conduct or outcome of that trial when it occurs. The outcome will be a matter for the trial judge in the light of the ruling which your Lordships have earlier given on the law, the evidence adduced at the trial and the submissions of the parties. It is the trial judge who will have to decide how the trial should be conducted and what findings of fact to make.
166. To turn now to the reasons for my assessment of the prospects of the claim, I will structure what I say applying the law as stated last May and applying it to the facts in two periods, first that period ending with the grant of the licence in June 1980, secondly that from July 1980 to the collapse of BCCI in July 1991. The plaintiffs' complaint in these two periods is different. In the first period it is that the defendants wrongly licensed BCCI under section s.3 of the Banking Act 1979 when they were forbidden by the statute from doing so. In the second period the complaint is that the defendants failed to supervise BCCI as they were required to do by the 1979 Act and its successor the Banking Act 1987 and failed to perform an obligation under those Acts to revoke the licence. I will take the law as stated in my speech, not because it is materially different from what was said by Lord Steyn, but because its analysis is unifying and therefore easier to apply in the discussion of these two periods and was, indeed, the formulation primarily relied upon by the plaintiffs.
167. The commission of the tort has two stages. The first is the act done by the defendant. The act must be an unlawful act, not in the sense that it is itself tortious but in the sense that it is contrary to the law for the defendant to have done what he did. In the case of a failure to act it must be a failure to do a specific act which it was the legal obligation of the defendant to do and which was therefore unlawful. In either case there must be unauthorised or forbidden conduct. The conduct must be accompanied by either actual or subjectively reckless, or 'blind eye', knowledge that it is unauthorised or forbidden. The second stage is that which relates to the defendants' appreciation of the consequences of his conduct. This may arise from his purpose in doing what he did (my first 'limb', Lord Steyn's first form of the tort) or from his appreciation that the plaintiff will in the ordinary course be caused loss or his consciously and wilfully turning a blind eye to the possibility of such loss (my second and third 'limbs', Lord Steyn's second form of the tort). Therefore, in making the assessment required by this appeal, one must apply this two stage test to the plaintiffs' case for the two periods.
The First Period:
168. The Act of 1979 introduced a system of licensing for deposit-takers which was new. The task of the defendants was not easy since they were faced with having to decide for the first time and within a relatively short time-scale whether to grant or refuse a licence to a substantial number of institutions which were already established businesses. The refusal of a licence would mean that the institution could no longer accept deposits and would have to go out of business. (s.1(1)) However the defendants' statutory obligation was clearly stated. In s.3(3)(b) and Part II of the Second Schedule, criteria are laid down which must be met unless subsection (5) applies. In any other case the defendants were forbidden from granting the licence. The defendants purported to grant the licence under subsection (5). For this to apply, the principal place of business of the institution must be in a country outside the United Kingdom and the supervisory authority in that country must have informed the defendants that they are satisfied with respect to the management of the institution and its overall financial soundness and the defendants must be satisfied with the nature and scope of the supervision exercised by those authorities. I consider that the plaintiffs clearly have a fully arguable case that these criteria were not satisfied and that the officials acting for the defendants cannot have believed that these criteria were satisfied. Therefore the plaintiffs have an arguable case on the first stage of the legal test. The courts below were of the same opinion and Mr Stadlen for the defendants only faintly argued the contrary.
169. The plaintiffs failed in the courts below on the second stage. Clarke J said:
- "Both BCCI SA and the group appeared to be profitable, the shareholders appeared to be supportive and willing to supply more capital when asked, the auditors were giving unqualified opinions on the accounts and the LBC continued to give favourable opinions. [Bingham] also refers to the attitude of the Bank of America, to which I shall return. In these circumstances, it cannot fairly be said that at this stage the Bank suspected that BCCI would probably collapse." (pp.42-3)
- "In all the circumstances I have reached the clear conclusion that on the evidence available at present, either as referred to in the Bingham Report or as contained in the documents to which I have been referred, the plaintiffs' case that the Bank knew, believed or suspected that if it gave BCCI a licence it would probably collapse is bound to fail." (pp.58-9)
- "I must say that, however critical one is of the Bank (and there is plenty of scope for criticism), it seems to me to offend common sense to conclude that before it licensed BCCI SA, in 1980 it actually knew, believed or suspected that if it licensed BCCI SA, BCCI SA would (or even might) subsequently collapse." ([2000] 2 WLR pp.91-2)
In the Court of Appeal, the majority agreed that there was no arguable case on foresight of loss. (p.92) Auld LJ based his view on the application of a different view of the constituents of the tort, a view which has been held to be wrong by your Lordships.
170. It is not suggested that the defendants granted the licence with the purpose of causing loss to any of the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs' case is, rather, that the officials consciously closed their eyes to what might be the consequences to present and future depositors of granting and not refusing the licence. There is no direct evidence to support this improbable allegation. The main evidence which is said to support the allegation is in part the self evident proposition that the officials probably had in mind that one of the main purposes of the regime introduced by the 1979 Act was to protect depositors as is stated in the preamble of the Act plus the proposition that if the safeguards in the Act were not observed before granting a licence there must be a risk that depositors will not be effectively protected; and partly that the officials had already learnt some very disturbing facts about the conduct of the BCCI, for example, from the publicity surrounding the withdrawal of the Bank of America. But there is no evidence to support the appreciation of the officials of the risk they were running nor that, having appreciated it, they wilfully chose to disregard it and hazard the depositors. At the relevant time BCCI appeared to be a flourishing and successful, though to some extent controversial, institution with very many satisfied depositors. The evidence both at the time and subsequently is that the officials thought that they would look silly if they raised difficulties for the approval of BCCI and that if they did they would not have been supported if challenged on an appeal. The objective fact is that no depositor actually lost any money until many years later after much else had happened, including the passing of a new Act in 1987. Problems of proving legal causation will obviously also arise.
171. There is simply no evidence of any contemplation at this stage that depositors with BCCI would lose their money. There is no evidence whatsoever, nor any allegation, of any corruption of any official of the defendants, either at this time or subsequently. The evidence of the requisite subjective state of mind is not there and there is no reasonable basis for believing that it ever will be. The case of the plaintiffs is in reality one in negligence supported by objective criteria and this does not suffice for the tort upon which they have to rely. This is as I see it an insuperable difficult for them on this part of the case.
The Second Period:
172. Here the difficulties which the plaintiffs have to overcome are more fundamental. The foundation of the tort is that the relevant person has done something (in the positive or negative sense) which is contrary to the law. The statutory provisions upon which the plaintiffs rely are ones which give the defendants powers in respect of licenced institutions. Their case is that they constitute a statutory scheme which included a duty to supervise the deposit-taker which the defendants failed to perform adequately. Their more specific case is that the defendants failed to make use of the statutory power given to them under s.11 of the 1987 Act to revoke the authorisation of BCCI, or to exercise one or more of the lesser powers given by sections such as s.12 (restriction of authorisation) or s.19 (directions). The difficulty for the plaintiffs here is that they are unable to sue in the tort of negligence and that the failures of the defendants which they allege do not have the character of unlawfulness. They all involve the exercise of discretions and judgment. There is no allegation which the plaintiffs can make that the statute made it unlawful for the defendants not to take some particular step at any given time.
173. This ties in with the plaintiffs' next difficulty. There is no evidence that the defendants and their officials were doing anything other than their best to handle the developing situation in a responsible manner in accordance with the Act. The officials may have been out of their depth. They may have been more optimistic than was justified now that all the facts are known. But, particularly in the later stages they were faced with a delicate situation where there were a number of conflicting interests to be taken into account and where any over-reaction would have caused BCCI to collapse without hope of rescue and with far greater losses to its creditors than ultimately occurred. It is easy to overlook the fact that the defendants' forbearance led to the injection in 1990 of substantial additional shareholder funds (how much these were and what happened to them is apparently questioned). The situation developed over the years. In the earlier years, the problem was indiscipline without the anticipation of a threat of default. Later, that situation developed into one which included a growing threat of failure, at first remote, finally grave and imminent. But in all these situations the defendants had to exercise judgment. The wrong step on their part would only make things worse. In 1988 the "College" was constituted and an international approach adopted in which the defendants participated; the defendants would have been irresponsible not to have done so. The plaintiffs have sought to identify some four occasions when they submit that the defendants knew that they had grounds for exercising one or more of their statutory powers and decided not to. Their inaction may be open to criticism. It can be argued that they should have acted differently but that is not the same as arguing that they acted unlawfully and, naturally, there is no evidence that they knew or even suspected that they might be acting unlawfully. The plaintiffs wish to present a case of dishonesty but they have not got the material to justify the allegation and have no realistic prospect of ever obtaining it. Instead, their case seeks to proceed from the proposition that the defendants were under a statutory duty to supervise BCCI to an allegation that the defendants were aware that they were not exercising effective supervision and thence to the allegation that it was unlawful for the defendants not to have exercised one or more of certain powers given to them under the Act. This is a non sequitur. The powers remain discretionary. It does not follow from the proposition that it would have been lawful to exercise one or more of those powers that not to exercise them was unlawful.
174. The same applies to the second stage of the test. There is no evidence that the defendants were setting out to cause anyone loss. In the earlier stages they did not foresee the disaster that was to come. In the later stages they were striving to avoid disaster and, if it proved not possible to avoid it, to limit the losses which would in that event inevitably be suffered. The officials had nothing to gain. All the evidence is that they were doing their best. Once they realised the scale of the problem with BCCI, they did not close their eyes to the consequences of a failure; they attempted to avoid precipitating that collapse which would clearly have been the consequence of the wrong kind of intervention. One can illustrate the general point from the plaintiffs' own pleading, schedule 5, paragraph 27(ii): the decision not to revoke the full licence in October 1986 was taken because the officials concluded that "there appeared to be no immediate danger to depositors and it seemed unlikely that there were grounds for revoking BCCI SA's licence outright".
175. The hearing before your Lordships has been concerned with whether the plaintiffs have a real prospect of success in the action. On any view they face very serious difficulties in presenting and substantiating their case. The burden of proof is upon them. The tort upon which they must rely is one which requires the plaintiffs to prove serious allegations of actual bad faith - dishonesty - against the officials. It is an abuse of process to make the allegations unless the plaintiffs have material to support at least a prima facie case that the allegations are correct. They do not have that material. For the action to be allowed to proceed on the speculation, not backed up by any real expectation, that they may before trial find evidence to support their allegations is vexatious. It is also contrary to the procedural rules now in force. These rules are based upon sound principles of the administration of justice. Doing justice includes bringing to a conclusion highly expensive and long drawn out litigation procedures, inevitably complex, which have no real prospect of success. The real grievance of the actual plaintiffs is that they believe that the law ought to allow actions in negligence against regulators but they accept through their counsel that it does not. I would dismiss the appeal.
LORD MILLETT
My Lords,
176. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA ("BCCI") was incorporated under the laws of Luxembourg and obtained a banking licence from the Luxembourg Banking Commission ("the LBC") in 1972. In the years which followed it carried on a world-wide business as a bank and deposit taking institution. Shortly after it received the licence from the LBC it established an office in London which eventually became its principal place of business. By 1979 it had 45 branches in the United Kingdom through which it offered a full range of banking services to members of the public.
177. The Banking Act 1979 came into force in October 1979. The Act made the Bank of England ("the Bank") formally responsible for supervising banks and other deposit taking institutions in the United Kingdom and conferred wide regulatory powers upon the Bank to enable it to discharge its functions. For the first time authorisation was required for a banking or deposit taking business to be carried on in the United Kingdom. The Act applied to companies like BCCI which was already carrying on an existing business in the United Kingdom as well as to those which wished to commence business here.
178. In 1980 the Bank granted BCCI a licence to accept deposits. Withholding the licence would have compelled the closure of BCCI's business in the United Kingdom (and in all likelihood elsewhere), with virtually certain loss to depositors. In granting the licence the Bank relied on the judgment of the LBC and made no independent judgment of its own whether the statutory criteria for authorisation were satisfied. It was not entitled to do this because BCCI's principal place of business was in the United Kingdom. Thereafter BCCI continued to carry on business in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for a further 11 years before it was closed down in July 1991 by regulatory action taken by the Bank. Depositors, most of whom must have become depositors or increased their deposits after 1980, have suffered substantial losses. They blame the Bank for its supervisory failures and seek to hold it responsible for their losses. They believe that the Bank was grossly negligent in granting the licence in the first place and in failing to revoke it or take other regulatory action long before it did.
179. Unfortunately for the depositors, a regulatory authority cannot be held liable in English law for negligence, however gross, in the exercise of its supervisory functions. So the depositors have been forced to base their claim on a very different cause of action. They allege that the Bank has been guilty of misfeasance in public office. This is an intentional tort. It involves deliberate or reckless wrongdoing. It cannot be committed negligently or inadvertently. Accordingly it is not enough for the depositors to establish negligence, or even gross negligence, on the part of the Bank. They must establish some intentional or reckless impropriety. As your Lordships ruled unanimously at an earlier stage of these proceedings ([2000] 2 WLR 1220), and in the absence of what has been described as "targeted malice" (which is not alleged), the tort has two elements. In the present case the depositors must prove (i) not merely that the Bank acted unlawfully, that is to say in excess of its powers or for an improper purpose, but that it did so knowingly (or recklessly not caring whether it had the necessary power or not); and (ii) that the Bank knew that its actions would probably cause loss to depositors (or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences of its actions). Such conduct in a public official is grossly improper and equates to dishonesty in a private individual.
180. Seen in this light, the depositors' case is a most implausible one. A bank regulator has a very difficult task and one which may call for an exercise of judgment of some nicety, since it must seek to protect future depositors against the risk of loss without sacrificing the interests of existing depositors. No responsible regulator would contemplate closing down a bank or other deposit taking institution (or taking other action which risked a run on it) with inevitable loss to existing depositors unless there was no alternative, ie unless it considered that collapse was virtually inevitable. A regulator's task has often to be performed on incomplete information and is highly judgmental. Even an action based on negligence would face formidable difficulties. But it is scarcely credible that, unless corrupt, public officials should have been guilty of intentional wrongdoing or have been indifferent to the consequences of their actions to the very people they were supposed to protect. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, of course, but in the absence of any incentive to act in this way it is in the highest degree unlikely. Certainly such conduct cannot lightly be inferred.
181. But the present case goes far beyond this. The Bank was formally concerned with the supervision of BCCI for more than 11 years (and informally for a further 8 years) and the supervisory attention which it paid to BCCI during this time was very great. The depositors are alleging deliberate or reckless wrongdoing on the part of a large number of officials at different levels of seniority over a long period. This would involve wholesale wrongdoing on a spectacular scale in the public service. Absent any plausible motive for such conduct it is an extravagant allegation. It will require evidence of the most compelling kind to establish. As Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead observed in In re H (minors) (Sexual abuse: Standard of proof) [1996] AC 563, p 586:
- "The more improbable the event, the stronger must be the evidence that it did occur before, on the balance of probability, its occurrence will be established. Ungoed-Thomas J expressed this neatly in In re Dellow's Will Trusts [1964] 1 WLR 451, 455: "The more serious the allegation the more cogent is the evidence required to overcome the unlikelihood of what is alleged and thus to prove it."
In the absence of evidence to support the allegation, it would be an abuse of process to make it. It is not at all surprising that the depositors have striven hard to avoid pleading any such case until they were compelled to do so, preferring instead to argue that it was not necessary.
182. In describing the depositors' case as "implausible" or "scarcely credible", I should not be taken as making any assumptions about the integrity of the Bank and its officials or as departing from the proper judicial stance of neutrality and impartiality. I do not take the view that the Bank can do no wrong or that public officials are incapable of acting in bad faith. But we are called upon to evaluate the action's prospects of success, and that exercise involves an impartial consideration of the inherent plausibility of the allegations and the strength of the evidence needed to establish them. The scales of justice must be evenly balanced at the commencement of such an operation; but they should not be incapable of movement while the operation is being undertaken. It is not unfair to observe that, in the absence of some financial or other incentive, a charge of dishonesty against professional men and public officials is possible but inherently improbable.
The pleadings: demurrer
183. Having read and re-read the pleadings, I remain of opinion that they are demurrable and could be struck out on this ground. The rules which govern both pleading and proving a case of fraud are very strict. In Jonesco v Beard [1930] AC 298 Lord Buckmaster, with whom the other members of the House concurred, said, at p 300:
- "It has long been the settled practice of the court that the proper method of impeaching a completed judgment on the ground of fraud is by action in which, as in any other action based on fraud, the particulars of the fraud must be exactly given and the allegation established by the strict proof such a charge requires" (my emphasis).
184. It is well established that fraud or dishonesty (and the same must go for the present tort) must be distinctly alleged and as distinctly proved; that it must be sufficiently particularised; and that it is not sufficiently particularised if the facts pleaded are consistent with innocence: see Kerr on Fraud and Mistake 7th ed (1952), p 644; Davy v Garrett (1878) 7 Ch D 473, 489; Bullivant v Attorney Genera; for Victoria [1901] AC 196; Armitage v Nurse [1998] Ch 241, 256. This means that a plaintiff who alleges dishonesty must plead the facts, matters and circumstances relied on to show that the defendant was dishonest and not merely negligent, and that facts, matters and circumstances which are consistent with negligence do not do so.
185. It is important to appreciate that there are two principles in play. The first is a matter of pleading. The function of pleadings is to give the party opposite sufficient notice of the case which is being made against him. If the pleader means "dishonestly" or "fraudulently", it may not be enough to say "wilfully" or "recklessly". Such language is equivocal. A similar requirement applies, in my opinion, in a case like the present, but the requirement is satisfied by the present pleadings. It is perfectly clear that the depositors are alleging an intentional tort.
186. The second principle, which is quite distinct, is that an allegation of fraud or dishonesty must be sufficiently particularised, and that particulars of facts which are consistent with honesty are not sufficient. This is only partly a matter of pleading. It is also a matter of substance. As I have said, the defendant is entitled to know the case he has to meet. But since dishonesty is usually a matter of inference from primary facts, this involves knowing not only that he is alleged to have acted dishonestly, but also the primary facts which will be relied upon at trial to justify the inference. At trial the court will not normally allow proof of primary facts which have not been pleaded, and will not do so in a case of fraud. It is not open to the court to infer dishonesty from facts which have not been pleaded, or from facts which have been pleaded but are consistent with honesty. There must be some fact which tilts the balance and justifies an inference of dishonesty, and this fact must be both pleaded and proved.
187. In Davy v Garrett 7 Ch D 473, 489 Thesiger LJ in a well known and frequently cited passage stated:
- "In the present case facts are alleged from which fraud might be inferred, but they are consistent with innocence. They were innocent acts in themselves, and it is not to be presumed that they were done with a fraudulent intent."
188. In Armitage v Nurse [1998] Ch 241 the plaintiff needed to prove that trustees had been guilty of fraudulent breach of trust. She pleaded that they had acted "in reckless and wilful breach of trust." This was equivocal. It did not make it clear that what was alleged was a dishonest breach of trust. But this was not fatal. If the particulars had not been consistent with honesty, it would not have mattered. Indeed, leave to amend would almost certainly have been given as a matter of course, for such an amendment would have been a technical one; it would merely have clarified the pleading without allowing new material to be introduced. But the Court of Appeal struck out the allegation because the facts pleaded in support were consistent with honest incompetence: if proved, they would have supported a finding of negligence, even of gross negligence, but not of fraud. Amending the pleadings by substituting an unequivocal allegation of dishonesty without giving further particulars would not have cured the defect. The defendants would still not have known why they were charged with dishonesty rather than with honest incompetence.
189. It is not, therefore, correct to say that if there is no specific allegation of dishonesty it is not open to the court to make a finding of dishonesty if the facts pleaded are consistent with honesty. If the particulars of dishonesty are insufficient, the defect cannot be cured by an unequivocal allegation of dishonesty. Such an allegation is effectively an unparticularised allegation of fraud. If the observations of Buxton LJ in Taylor v Midland Bank Trust Co Ltd (unreported) 21 July 1999 are to the contrary, I am unable to accept them.
190. In the present case the depositors (save in one respect with which I shall deal later) make the allegations necessary to establish the tort, but the particulars pleaded in support are consistent with mere negligence. In my opinion, even if the depositors succeeded at the trial in establishing all the facts pleaded, it would not be open to the court to draw the inferences necessary to find that the essential elements of the tort had been proved.
The evidential material: prospects of success
191. But I prefer to decide this appeal on the broader and simpler ground that the action has no real prospects of success. In reaching this conclusion I have not relied upon the Bingham report or its findings. My reasons are as follows.
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1. The grant of the licence
(1) It is clear that the Bank was not entitled to grant the licence in reliance on the LBC. So the depositors can prove that the Bank acted unlawfully. However, it was not unlawful for the Bank to grant a licence, but only to do so without first making its own independent inquiries. It must now be a matter of speculation whether the Bank would still have granted the licence if it had made its own inquiries, so there is a difficult (though I am willing to assume not insuperable) question of causation. The burden of proving this lies with the depositors.
(2) It is arguable that the Bank knew the facts which deprived it of the power to grant the licence in reliance upon the LBC and without making its own inquiries. But knowledge of facts which deprive a party of the power to take a particular course of action is not the same as knowledge that it is acting in excess of power. There is no reason to suppose, and not a shred of evidence to suggest, that any official of the Bank appreciated the position, or that any official suspected it but turned a blind eye. If the Bank had realised or suspected that it was not entitled to rely on the LBC, it would obviously have made its own inquiries. It had not the slightest reason not to do so. The facts pleaded, and all the evidence we have seen, are entirely consistent with an honest but (possibly) negligent failure to appreciate the legal consequences of the known facts. This is insufficient to sustain the claim, since the first element of the tort is lacking.
(3) Even if the depositors could establish the first element of the tort, they have no prospect of establishing the second. There is no case for supposing that in 1980 BCCI was in fact already insolvent or likely to collapse; and even if it was the Bank obviously had no knowledge or suspicion that it was. As Clarke J said: it defies common sense to suppose that regulators would licence a bank which they foresaw would probably (or be at all likely to) collapse.
2. The failure to revoke the licence prior to 1990.
(1) The tort is concerned with the abuse of power by public officials who act in excess of their powers to the injury of the subject. It is not concerned with their failure to exercise the powers they do have, particularly when they have a discretion whether to exercise them or not.
(2) The Bank had a power to revoke the licence in certain circumstances. But it had no duty to do so unless the circumstances were such that (objectively) the discretion could only be exercised in favour of revocation. This was never the case, nor is it alleged that it was. Even if the Bank appreciated (after the event) that it had acted in excess of its powers when granting the licence, this did not impose a duty (as distinct from a power) to revoke the licence. It follows that the Bank never acted unlawfully in failing to exercise its power to revoke the licence.
(3) In any case, the Bank's internal documents show that it never believed that it had grounds to revoke the licence, and considered that even if it did revocation would not be justified. There is no reason to suppose (and there is nothing pleaded which would justify a finding) that these views were not honestly (even if erroneously) held. Accordingly, the first element of the tort is lacking.
(4) The real problem was that, as the Bank knew, BCCI was effectively unsupervised. The depositors laid considerable emphasis on this, and rightly so; but they did not face up to the consequences. It meant that the Bank did not know enough to justify either letting BCCI continue or closing it down. It was not unlawful to abstain from revoking the licence in these circumstances. The real charge against the Bank is that it never got to grips with the problem of supervision. This may have been negligent, but it did not amount to deliberate wrongdoing or bad faith.
(5) The right course may have been to impose restrictions. This never entered anyone's head. The failure to take a step which was never even considered may be negligent but cannot possibly amount to deliberate (or reckless) wrongdoing.
(3) The failure to revoke the licence: 1990-91.
(1) By 1990 the Bank knew that BCCI was insolvent and fraudulently run. So it knew (for the first time) that there were grounds for closing it down. But it still had to consider whether this was in the interests of depositors, both present and future.
(2) No regulator would close down a bank in such circumstances while there was any reasonable prospect of a rescue. The first question is whether, objectively and without the benefit of hindsight, there was a reasonable possibility of a rescue (with new funds and new management) until the section 41 report put paid to it. If so, the Bank was not acting unlawfully in exercising its discretion not to revoke the licence, and the first element of the tort would be lacking.
(3) But even if the depositors satisfy the court that there was in fact no reasonable prospect of a rescue, this is not enough. The essential question is whether it was the Bank's honestly held view that there was. There is no reason to suppose and not a shred of evidence from which it could be inferred that the Bank did not honestly believe that a rescue was a reasonable possibility. All the documents we have seen show that this was why the Bank stayed its hand. There is no hint of any other reason. As soon as it received the section 41 report, and realised that there would be no rescue, it moved to close the business down.
(4) The depositors do not even plead the necessary averment. They still plead only that (negatively) the Bank did not believe that there would probably be a rescue. This is remarkable given that Clarke J told them that what they needed to allege and prove was that (positively) the Bank knew or suspected that there would probably not be a rescue. There can be only one reason for their failure to plead the necessary averment: it is because they know that they cannot. In the absence of the necessary pleading (supported by proper particulars), it is not open to the court to find that the Bank knew that depositors would probably suffer loss. The second element of the tort is lacking.
(5) The depositors' case is that a regulator has a legal duty to close down an insolvent bank even if it believes that there is a reasonable prospect of a rescue, unless it also believes that a rescue is likely. It is only necessary to formulate the proposition to see that it must be rejected. Nothing could be more inimical to the interests of depositors than to place such a restriction on the regulator's power in their interests to explore every alternative to closure. Not to do so would display the very reckless indifference to their interests of which the depositors in the present case complain.
Conclusion
192. I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead that, while cases should in principle be disposed of as expeditiously and cheaply as the circumstances permit, the most important principle of all is that justice should be done. But this does not mean justice to the plaintiff alone. It is not just to a plaintiff to strike out his claim without a trial unless it has no real prospect of success. It is not just to defendants to subject them to a lengthy and expensive trial to defend their integrity when there is no foundation in the evidence for the attack upon it.
193. In my opinion the depositors cannot establish the requisite elements of the tort in respect of any matter of complaint. They have either failed to make the necessary allegations, or where they have done so they have pleaded insufficient facts in support to entitle the court to draw the necessary inferences. They have produced no document which supports their case, and every document which they have produced and on which they have placed reliance is either neutral or more often contradictory of their case. When in addition regard is had to the seriousness and sheer improbability of their case and the cogency of the evidence required to prove it, the conclusion is inescapable that it has no real prospects of success.
194. In agreement with my noble and learned friend Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough, I would dismiss the appeal and strike out the action.
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