A solicitor retained to act for a company in the course of formation secretly arranged to benefit from his prospective client’s anticipated acquisition of a building called the ‘Hall of Commerce’ by obtaining from the owner a 50% beneficial interest in a parcel of land consisting of the Hall and some adjoining land. After the client had purchased the Hall from the owner, it discovered that the solicitor had secretly profited from the transaction and sued him. The solicitor now appealed against a finding against him.
Held: Thile the Master of the Rolls was right about the solicitor’s interst in the hall. He had been wrong about the adjoining land: although the client had an equitable claim for the value of the solicitor’s interest in the adjoining land, it had no proprietary interest in that land.
The fact that the client had not been formed by the time that the solicitor acquired his interest in the land did not prevent the claim succeeding as the client had been ‘conceived, and was in the process of formation’.
Judges:
Lord Westbury LC, Lord Cranworth and Lord Chelmsford
Citations:
[1862] EngR 498, (1862) 10 HLC 26, (1862) 11 ER 934
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – The Bank of London v Tyrrell CA 30-Jun-1859
A solicitor is accountable to his clients for the benefits which he may have derived clandestinely in transactions in which he was professionally engaged.
A solicitor was active in founding a banking company. Before its establishment he . .
Cited by:
Cited – FHR European Ventures Llp and Others v Cedar Capital Partners Llc SC 16-Jul-2014
Approprietary remedy against Fraudulent Agent
The Court was asked whether a bribe or secret commission received by an agent is held by the agent on trust for his principal, or whether the principal merely has a claim for equitable compensation in a sum equal to the value of the bribe or . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Legal Professions
Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.286664
