In this article, Andrew Bowen QC looks at the case of Singularis Holdings Ltd (In Official Liquidation) v Daiwa Capital Markets Europe Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 84.

The decision of the Court of Appeal dealt with the difficult issue of the circumstances in which the knowledge of a sole shareholder and dominant director, who had committed a fraud on the company, should be attributed to the company when the company in turn was suing a bank for breach of contract and negligence in facilitating the fraud. The follow‐on issue was whether, if that knowledge was attributed to the company, the defence of illegality was available to allow the bank to defeat the claim in negligence and breach of contract brought by its corporate customer on the basis that the company could not benefit from its own fraud. The first instance judge had dismissed both grounds of the bank’s defence.

This article was first published in Greens Business Law Bulletin, Issue 154 (June 2018) and on Westlaw. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Thomson Reuters.