Andrew Mitchell QC and Ian Bergson successfully acted for the respondent bank in Elite Property Holdings Limited & Anr v Barclays Bank plc, concerning claims in unlawful means conspiracy said to arise in connection with the FCA review into interest rate hedging product mis-selling.
The Court of Appeal (Hamblen and Asplin LJJ, Nugee J) upheld the Judge’s refusal to allow the Appellants to pursue these claims. The Court held that they were barred by settlement agreements concluded in November 2014 and (in any event) that the Appellants had no real prospect of showing a combination between the Bank and the insolvency practitioners BDO to act unlawfully. The judgment emphasises the importance of pleading each of the essential ingredients of the tort of conspiracy, which had not happened in this case.
Patrick Goodall QC had successfully acted for the bank below. A copy of the judgment is available here.
