Case Law Update: The Supreme Court considers Philipp v Barclays Bank UK Plc
Authored by Foot Anstey, read the full article on Foot Anstey’s website.
On 1 and 2 February, the case of Philipp v Barclays Bank UK Plc was heard before the Supreme Court. The hearing follows the Court of Appeal’s decision to grant Mrs Philipp’s appeal against the High Court’s summary judgment in favour of Barclays. The Court of Appeal’s judgment garnered much attention from financial institutions, as it points to a potential broadening of the scope of the Quincecare duty.
The Quincecare duty was established in the case of Barclays Bank Plc v Quincecare Ltd. In essence, whilst a bank owes its customers a duty to observe reasonable care and skill in executing a payment instruction, where a bank has reasonable grounds to believe that an instruction is an attempt to misappropriate a customer’s funds, it also has a duty to refrain from executing that instruction.
The Philipp case concerns an “Authorised Push Payment” fraud.
APP fraud occurs when a customer of a bank is deceived into instructing their bank to transfer money into an account controlled by a fraudster. In this case, Mrs Philipp was deceived by a fraudster posing as an FCA employee and, consequently, made three international payments to bank accounts in the Middle East. Further background can be considered (here).
The case has raised some interesting questions.
