BL-2023-NCL-000014 - [2025] EWHC 2074 (Ch)

Fecha: 07-Ago-2025

Unjust enrichment

Unjust enrichment

234.

It was common ground that the claim to unjust enrichment in this case should be answered by following the approach of Lord Steyn in Banque Financière de la Cité v Parc (Battersea) Ltd [1999] 1 AC 221, 227, and ask: (a) Has the defendant been benefitted in the sense of being enriched? (b) Was the enrichment at the claimant’s expense? (c)Was the enrichment unjust? (d) Are there any defences? (see also e.g. Samsoondar v Capital Insurance Co Ltd [2020] UKPC33 at paragraph [18] per Lord Burrows). The burden of proving the first three lies on the Claimant. The burden of proving defences lies on the Defendant.

235.

As the Supreme Court has stressed in Investment Trust Companies v Revenue & Customs Commissioners [2017] UKSC 29; [2018] AC 275 paragraphs [38] to [42] (and I summarise):

(1)

the law of unjust enrichment is based on rules of law which are “ascertainable and consistently applied”. It is not a label enabling the court in the individual case to decide what is just or unjust, fair or unfair as if the court had a discretion in the matter;

(2)

The doctrine of precedent continues to apply even though the concept of unjust enrichment as “a unifying principle underlying different types of claim” may be a fairly recent phenomenon and the principle may still be in the course of development;

(3)

Lord Steyn’s four questions are no more than “broad headings for ease of exposition”. They enable a structured approach to the analysis of unjust enrichment. However, they do not embody legal tests but rather “signposts to areas of inquiry” and one cannot apply Lord Steyn’s words as it they were words of a statute,

(4)

In carrying out relevant legal analysis, it is important to have at the forefront of one’s mind the purpose of the law of unjust enrichment. It is “designed to correct normatively defective transfers of value, usually by restoring parties to their pre-transfer positions.”