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

Though Tecnimont went too far in applying it, the principle remains that in the context of unjust enrichment claims, the defendant is only considered to have been enriched at the expense of the claimant by direct transfers, or something in reality equivalent thereto. In this case, for trial defendants other than Syntax (as regards tax refund claim payments made to them by SKAT) or the corporate Godson Ds (as regards tax refund claim payments made by SKAT to a Tax Agent in respect of a tax refund claim submitted on their behalf), the facts are a world away from the sort of coordinated transfer described in ITC. SKAT’s reliance on that notion confused, with respect, the existence of arrangements to which defendants were party (and which could be described as coordinated, from the perspective of at least some of the defendants) under which they would receive payments, but not from SKAT, if payments were made by SKAT, with the ITC notion of coordinated transfers involving the payor (and others) such that the party intended by the payor to benefit from its payment or other transfer was not the immediate or direct recipient from the claimant.

On the facts, that means that SKAT’s unjust enrichment claims were bound to fail except as against Syntax (where I have no liability decision to make anyway because of the default judgment) and as against the corporate Godson Ds (in so far as unjust enrichment claims were asserted by SKAT in relation to those defendants’ respective own tax refund claims).