Bank Mellat v Her Majesty’s Treasury

In a judgment handed down on 6 May 2015 Mr Justice Flaux determined three preliminary issues arising in the damages claim brought by Bank Mellat against Her Majesty’s Treasury in the wake of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Bank Mellat v HMT [2013] UKSC 39; [2014] AC 700.

The Judge found against the Treasury on all three issues holding:

1. That it was not open to the Treasury to contend that it did not act in a way which was incompatible with a Convention right and / or unlawful contrary to section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 [20-25];
2. That the Treasury could not defeat certain elements of the Bank’s claims by reference to the reflective loss principle [26-52]; and
3. That once it was established that there had been an unlawful interference with possessions for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention, damages were recoverable for whatever loss and damage could be established as having been suffered as a consequence of the unlawful interference, including consequential losses such as loss of future earnings or profits, not constrained by whether what is claimed by way of loss is itself a “possession”, but only by whether the loss claimed was caused by the unlawful interference with the relevant possessions which the Court has found [67].

The full judgment can be read here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2015/1258.html

Timothy Otty QC was part of the team representing Bank Mellat.