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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Independents' Advantage Insurance Company Ltd. v Cook & Anor [2003] EWCA Civ 1103 (24 July 2003) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2003/1103.html Cite as: [2003] EWCA Civ 1103, [2004] PNLR 3 |
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COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
(MR JUSTICE LLOYD)
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE CHADWICK
and
MR JUSTICE CRESSWELL
____________________
INDEPENDENTS' ADVANTAGE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED |
Respondent/ Claimant |
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- and - |
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THE PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVES OF MICHAEL JOHN WILLIS COOK (deceased) and another |
Appellants/ Defendants |
____________________
Smith Bernal Wordwave Limited, 190 Fleet Street
London EC4A 2AG
Tel No: 020 7421 4040, Fax No: 020 7831 8838
Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
Mr Graeme McPherson (instructed by Fladgate Fielder of 25 North Row, London W1K 6DJ) for the Respondent
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
Lord Justice Chadwick :
The underlying facts
(1) The appellants are Mr Colin White-Adams and the personal representatives of the late Mr Michael Cook. At all material times Mr Cook and Mr White-Adams carried on business together as chartered accountants under the firm name "Michael Cook & Co". The firm held itself out as having experience in the provision of audit and accountancy services to travel agents..
(2) Until January 2000 Mr Paul Emery and his wife, Mrs Elaine Emery, carried on business together as travel agents and tour operators under the name "Swift Travel". Swift Travel was a member of the Association of British Travel Agents ("ABTA") and the International Air Transport Association ("IATA").
(3) Both ABTA and IATA required their members to submit annually audited financial statements and reports. They also required their members to satisfy them that they had in place acceptable security sufficient to cover the obligations which each association undertook towards those who travel under arrangements made through or provided by members of that association.
(4) It was common practice within the travel industry for the security required by ABTA and IATA to be provided by a third party in consideration of a premium paid by the travel agent or tour operator. The business of IAIC included the provision of ABTA and IATA bonds in respect of independent travel agents. In particular, it provided bonds in respect of Swift Travel to IATA in March 1996 and February 1997 and to ABTA in January and July 1999. Further, between August and November 1999, IAIC made loans to Swift Travel (amounting in aggregate to £144,254) in order to enable it to meet working capital requirements imposed by ABTA (and so to continue to trade) and in the hope of avoiding a call under the bonds.
(5) From 1995 until the end of 1998 Michael Cook & Co ("the firm") had been retained by Swift Travel to provide audit and accountancy services. In the course of that retainer the firm prepared financial statements for each of the years to 31 May 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, audited those financial statements, prepared and signed auditors' reports and submitted those financial statements and reports to Swift Travel, to ABTA and (save in respect of the year to 31 May 1998) to IATA.
(6) Swift Travel submitted the financial statements and reports to IAIC in support of its application for the provision of the bonds required by ABTA and IATA, and for financial assistance to meet the working capital requirements imposed by ABTA. In deciding whether to provide the bonds - and whether to make loans to Swift Travel between August and November 1999 – each association relied on the financial statements and reports which had been submitted to it.
(7) In January 1998 IAIC paid £40,000 to IATA under the February 1997 bond. Between April and August 1998 IAIC recovered £8,332 from Swift Travel in reimbursement of that payment. The balance has not been recovered. In January 2000 Swift Travel ceased to trade – following termination of its ABTA membership – and, shortly thereafter, Mr and Mrs Emery were declared bankrupt. IAIC has recovered no part of the loans made to Swift Travel in 1999. It may be that IAIC has been required to pay ABTA under the bonds executed in January and July 1999; but that is not alleged in the particulars of claim. What is said is that "The Claimant has incurred professional fees in investigating and attempting to limit its liability under the terms of the IATA and ABTA bonds and under the terms of the loans. Those fees presently total £15,876.63".
The pleaded allegations
"37. The Defendant knew or ought to have known
a. Of Swift's membership of ABTA and IATA, and
b. That Swift's audited financial statements and the auditors' reports relating to those financial statements
i. Would be provided to (and were provided to) ABTA and/or IATA for the purpose of enabling Swift to secure and renew its membership of those trade associations, and
ii. Would be relied upon by ABTA and/or IATA for the purposes of determining whether or not to offer or continue to offer membership of the relevant association to Swift and if so, on what terms.
. . .
39 The Defendant also knew or ought to have known
a. That Swift obtained bond facilities and finance from institutions such as the Claimant in order to satisfy the requirements of ABTA and/or IATA, and
b. That Swift's audited financial statements and the auditors' reports relating to those financial statements
i. Would be provided (and were provided) by Swift to institutions such as the Claimant to support applications for the provision of bond facilities and/or other financial support, and
ii. Would be relied upon by institutions such as the Claimant for the purposes of determining whether to provide bond facilities and/or other financial support to Swift and if so, on what terms."
"40 . . .
a. The Defendant knew that Swift was a member of ABTA and/or IATA and so had to meet the funding requirements of those associations . . .
b. Between 1995 and 1999 Paul Emery of Swift orally advised Joy Boswell of Michael Cook on numerous occasions that Swift:
i. Intended to satisfy (and were satisfying) the funding and financial requirements imposed on it by ABTA and IATA by obtaining bond facilities and raising funds from institutions such as the Claimant;
ii Would be providing the audited financial statements and auditors' reports prepared by the Defendant to institutions such as the Claimant for the purpose of persuading institutions such as the Claimant to provide bond facilities and/or finance to Swift so as to enable Swift to meet the funding and financial requirements imposed on it by ABTA and IATA;
c. The Defendant included within the Schedule of Overheads in Swift's financial statements for each of the years 31st May 1995, 31 1st May 1996, 31st May 1997 and 31st May 1998 an expense labelled 'Travel Bond' representing the cost to Swift of obtaining a bond facility and/or finance from institutions such as the Claimant;
d. It was common practice within the travel industry:
i. For travel agents applying to institutions such as the Claimant for the bond facilities and/or funds necessary to satisfy the requirements of ABTA and/or IATA to submit audited accounts and auditors' reports [ii.] to third parties such as the Claimant to support such applications, and
iii. For institutions such as the Claimant to rely upon such audited accounts and auditors' reports when determining whether to grant such bond facilities and/or other funding and if so, on what terms.
The Defendant was aware or ought to have been aware of such matters from its own experience of providing accountancy and audit services to travel agents."
The application
"CPR 3.4 is concerned with the statement of case, whereas CPR 24.2 is concerned with the evidence, see Swain v Hillman [2001] 1 All ER 91 at p.92h. Nevertheless in the present case the relevant facts are stated in the Particulars of Claim and, for the purposes of this application, must be accepted. It therefore follows that the Court's approach under either rule will be the same."
". . . it is difficult to resist a conclusion that what have been treated as three separate requirements are, at least in most cases, in fact merely facets of the same thing, for in some cases the degree of foreseeability is such that it is from that alone that the requisite proximity can be deduced, whilst in others the absence of that essential relationship can most rationally be attributed simply to the court's view that it would not be fair and reasonable to hold the defendant responsible. "Proximity" is, no doubt, a convenient expression so long as it is realised that it is no more than a label which embraces not a definable concept but merely a description of circumstances from which, pragmatically, the courts conclude that a duty of care exists."
"19. . . . , while the defendant did not know in advance from whom Swift would obtain its bond it is treated as knowing [for the purposes of the application], or being in a position in which it ought to have known, that Swift would be required to obtain a bond or other security; that it would approach an institution such as the claimant for the purpose; and that the institution would require to see Swift's accounts and audited reports and would rely on them in deciding whether or not to provide a bond or other support. (See paragraphs 39 and 40 of the Particulars of Claim.)
20. That being so, it seems to me arguable that the claimant, as the one eventually used of the possible class of providers of bonds and other securities on behalf of Swift to ABTA and IATA, was within the range of proximity even though it was not identified in advance."
"In my judgment the claimant has asserted a case which is capable of showing that the defendant was under a duty of care to the claimant. I agree that this case is at one remove from Andrew v Kounnis Freeman inasmuch as there the claimant was known to the defendant and the claimant's requirements had been communicated specifically direct to the defendant. That looks like a much stronger case than this. But there may be force in [counsel for the claimant's] point that a duty to IATA would be an empty duty, since that body may not suffer loss through claims on the compensation fund. Where, as alleged in the Particulars of Claim, the funding of the compensation fund through a bond, guarantee or other security is, or should be known to the defendants, specialists in the accountancy and audit of travel agents and it is said also to be known that the financial statements are produced to insurers and relied upon, I cannot see that this case can be held at this stage to be altogether outside the principles already established. . . . "
Accordingly he dismissed the application made by the notice of 26 July 2002.
This appeal
" . . . It saves expense; it achieves expedition; it avoids the court's resources being used up on cases where this serves no useful purpose; and I would add, generally, that it is in the interests of justice. If a claimant has a case which is bound to fail, then it is in the claimant's interests to know as soon as possible that that is the position. . . ."
"In my view the liability of professional advisers, including auditors, for failure to provide accurate information or correct advice can, truly, be said to be in a state of transition or development. As the House of Lords has pointed out, repeatedly, this is an area in which the law is developing pragmatically and incrementally. It is pre-eminently an area in which the legal result is sensitive to the facts. . . ."
In his judgment in Siddell and another v Smith Cooper & Partners (a firm) [1999] PNLR 511, 520E-522E, 524B, Lord Justice Clarke (with whom the other member of the Court, Lord Justice Mummery, agreed) considered that passage and adopted the same approach. In Andrew and others v Kounnis Freeman [2000] Lloyd's Rep PN 263 Lord Justice Jonathan Parker referred to the observations in Coulthard v Neville Russell with apparent approval. He expressed the view (ibid 272) that it would only be in rare cases that a court will "be in a position to determine the question of the existence or otherwise of a duty of care owed by professional advisers on a strike out application". It is clear that he had in mind that the cases which come before the courts – and, in particular, the cases which come before this Court -– are those which are perceived to be at or near to the margin of existing decisions; and in those cases the court is, properly, reluctant to develop the law on the basis of assumed facts. He recognised that, "once subjected to the scrutiny of a full trial", the factual background may look rather more complex than that presented by the pleaded case.
"In my judgment, Caparo's case is binding authority for the following propositions. (i) In cases of negligent mis-statement, foreseeability that the plaintiff or someone in a similar position will rely up on the statement is a necessary but not sufficient condition for liability. (ii) In addition, it is necessary to establish a nexus or relationship between the parties sufficient to create a duty of care. That relationship can only be determined by close analysis in each case. The label applied to such a relationship is 'proximity', but there is no single definitive test. In some cases, it may be useful to consider whether there has been 'a voluntary assumption of responsibility', in others, whether the relationship is 'equivalent to contract'. (iii) The necessary relationship exists between a company's auditors and its members, because the auditors are under a statutory duty to report to the members and know that it is intended to send copies of their report to them. (iv) The relationship may also exist if the circumstances are such that the auditors can be taken impliedly to have represented the accuracy of the accounts to the plaintiff, and perhaps whenever they provide the accounts to the company with intention, or in the knowledge that it is the company's intention, that they are to be supplied to the plaintiff or to persons in a class of which the plaintiff is one. (v) It is not necessary that the auditors should have any particular transaction in contemplation, or should intend the recipient of their report to act upon it in any such transaction. If the necessary relationship exists, it is enough if it is foreseeable that the recipient of the report may rely upon it in some future transaction, whether contemplated by the auditors or not, and whether with reference to his existing shareholding or not. (vi) The necessary relationship does not exist between a company's auditors and potential investors who are not existing shareholders in the company. The fact that it is foreseeable that their report may come into their hands and be relied upon by them is not sufficient without more to create the relationship."
"In the present case, the defendants did not make their reports to the plaintiff banks or to any other person with the intention or in the knowledge that they would be communicated to them. The most that can be said is that it was foreseeable that, if any of the plaintiff banks wished to consider the continuance or renewal of existing facilities or the grant of additional facilities, it might well call for copies of the company's latest audited accounts and rely upon them and the accompanying auditors' report."
He went on to say this, at page 336G:
"The fact that the plaintiffs are a small and limited class and known to the defendants reduces the seriousness of the consequences of holding that a duty of care exists and may make it less unjust or less unreasonable to impose such a duty; but it cannot by itself create a relationship between the parties. What needs to be shown is not knowledge of their identity but, at the very least, knowledge of an intention that the information will be provided to them. . . . "
That reflects the second (tentative) limb of proposition (iv), cited above:
"The relationship may also exist . . . whenever [the auditors] provide the accounts to the company . . . in the knowledge that it is the company's intention that they are to be supplied . . . to persons in a class of which the plaintiff is one". [emphasis added]
Conclusion
Mr. Justice Cresswell:
Lord Justice Potter: