CL-2018-000297, CL-2018-000404, CL-2018-000590, - [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm)

I agree with SKAT’s submission that the established legal principles under the foundational decision of the House of Lords in Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller & Partners Ltd [1964] AC 465, on negligence liability attaching to the making of statements by financial professionals that cause pure economic loss, are sufficient to determine whether Lindisfarne owed SKAT a duty of care. There is no need for any development of the law (incrementally or otherwise), and no need to give general or separate consideration to notions of the justice or reasonableness of imposing or not imposing a duty of care – as Lord Goff put it in Henderson v Merrett Syndicates Ltd [1995] 2 AC 145 at 181D, “there should be no need to embark upon any further enquiry whether it is ‘fair, just and reasonable’ to impose liability for economic loss”.