QB-2020-000092 - [2025] EWHC 002154 (KB)

Strike out / grant summary judgment on claim against Tenth Defendant?

Mr Day’s skeleton argument said that the tenth defendant “does not and has never carried on any regulated activities, therefore is not and has never been authorised by the FSA or the FCA and so is not subject to the UK financial regulatory regime. The tenth defendant therefore did not owe the claimant, and could not have owed him, any of the pleaded regulatory or analogous duties, which duties the claimant alleges are to be inferred from the UK financial regulatory regime …”. I disagree. As Mr Day himself touched upon in the passage just quoted, the claimant does not directly rely on COBS or any other part of the UK financial regime. He relies on tortious or contractual duties which arise or are to be inferred analogously. It seems to me at least reasonably arguable that such an analogy can be drawn whether COBS directly applied or did not. Further, the tenth defendant was the trustee and custodian of the funds that were lost and, indeed, was the legal entity which opened the portfolio in which the funds were held. It would be surprising indeed if no actionable duties attached to that role.