Intervention in Supreme Court Appeal

Peter Knox QC and Richard Samuel appeared in the Supreme Court last week in the case of Marex Financial Limited v Carlos Sevilleja Garcia UKSC 2018/0178. They were instructed by Trowers and Hamlins to appear on behalf of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking in an unprecedented intervention by that group in a Supreme Court appeal.

The Supreme Court reconsidered the rule against reflective loss, upon which it last pronounced in Johnson v Gore Wood [2002] 2 AC 1. The rule as currently formulated has an adverse impact on owners of insolvent small businesses with claims against lenders, which the APPG represents. By their intervention the APPG was concerned to draw to the Supreme Court’s attention the particular practical problems caused by the no reflective loss rule to business owners in an insolvency context, and to argue for a more flexible approach to the rule.

The appeal was heard by the Supreme Court on 8 May 2019 and can be viewed here.