Following on from our Blog post and article from November of last year that looked at the potential liabilities of banks and related parties in the context of authorised push payment (“APP”) frauds, the recent decision of Master Brown in CCP Graduate School Ltd v National Westminster Bank PLC & Anor [2024] EWHC 581 (KB) has again seen the court grappling with the question of the liability of receiving banks, this time considering the potential existence of a “duty of retrieval”. This question arose in CCP in the context of one limb of an application by the First and Second Defendant banks ..read more

Search orders Search orders are a form of interim, mandatory injunction which require a respondent to allow the applicant’s representatives to enter the respondent’s premises and search for, copy and remove documents or material for the purpose of preserving evidence and/or property which is or may be subject to an action.  Search orders are, therefore, considered to be one of the most draconian orders a court can make, and particularly so as a respondent may be held in contempt of court for failing to comply with this type of order.  Accordingly, the court will only grant a search o ..read more

The “pig butchering” scam is not new but has enjoyed a rapid rise in recent years.  So much so, that virtually everyone reading this blog will have been an intended mark at some point, probably without knowing it.  Indeed, if you have ever received a message from an unknown number with a random message that apparently wasn’t intended for you such as “sorry I missed my appointment” or “Hi mum, this is my new number” then that probably wasn’t an innocent mistake, it was the start of the long con of the 2020s.  The pig butcher scam generally starts online, through social media, or ..read more

Following on from our recent Blog post about UK Finance’s half-yearly fraud update, in an article published today with the International Banker we look at the increasingly common authorised push payment (APP) fraud and consider what can be done and who might be liable ..read more

UK Finance has recently published its half yearly fraud update for the first half of 2023, its findings are based on data reported to it by its members, which include financial providers, credit, debit and charge card issuers and card payment acquirers. The results are interesting, although perhaps not surprising to anyone who has been bombarded by scam emails and phone calls informing you, in increasingly inventive ways, that your Netflix account has been suspended, that you are being investigated by HMRC, or that you have won a fortune (once you have provided your bank details), as well as v ..read more

On 12 July 2023, the Supreme Court delivered its widely anticipated judgment in Philipp v Barclays Bank UK PLC. In doing so, the Court has gone back to basics to explain the basis for and scope of a bank’s duty to its customers, and has brought the Quincecare duty back to a narrower footing. By overturning the Court of Appeal (covered in our previous blog here), and varying the original High Court ruling (which we addressed in another previous blog post), the Supreme Court has again shown that it will not hesitate to redraw the boundaries of duty where it deems them to have been overly broaden ..read more

My colleague Ben Ticehurst, a Director in our UK Government Investigations and White Collar team, recently shared a timely insight on increased use by the Financial Conduct Authority of Account Freezing Orders (“AFrOs”) and Account Forfeiture Orders (“AFOs”) on our Anticorruption Blog.  He reports on the recent decision for the FCA to secure its first AFO, a tool used for asset recovery under Part 5 of Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, for £2 million against QPay Europe Limited.  Until recently , AFO and AFrO powers, granted by the Criminal Finances Act 2017, have mainly been used by the N ..read more

In March the Court of Appeal overturned an earlier High Court judgment and held that the application of Quincecare duty does not depend on the fact that the bank is instructed by an agent of the customer of the bank. In principle, the Quincecare duty could now arise where a non-corporate customer falls victim to an “authorised push payment” (APP) fraud. APP fraud happens when fraudsters deceive someone to make a payment under false pretences to a bank account held by the fraudster. Importantly in the context of the Quincecare duty, in APP fraud cases it is the bank’s customer that has instruct ..read more

The Work and Pensions Committee (“WPC”) has launched an investigation into pension scams in the UK and what more can be done to prevent them. This is the first part of a three-stage inquiry that will examine the impact of pension freedoms and protecting pension savers. Background It has been five years since the Government introduced pension freedoms in 2015, aimed at giving people aged over 55 more control over how and when they access their retirement savings. Chair of the WPC, Stephen Timms, recognised that, “more flexibility means more potential for the unscrupulous to take advantage and s ..read more

The Pensions Policy Institute (“Institute“) has said that a lack of comprehensive data on the number and scale of pensions scams, places limitations on the industry’s ability to effectively protect savers. According to the Institute, “victims of pension scams [are] losing more than £80,000 on average.” There is growing concern from the Institute that during the COVID-19 pandemic, scammers will take advantage of uncertain financial issues and volatile markets more so than ever. Background The Institute has said that the nature of pensions’ scams changed after 2015, when freedoms were ..read more