President of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) allows an appeal and orders that a restriction to be removed from the Appellant’s title

Carlton Vale Limited v Gapper [2023] UKUT 141 (LC)

In an interesting appeal that turned on the proper approach to an agreement when it is argued that one party is seeking to benefit from its own wrong, the Upper Tribunal concluded that neither the relevant rule of construction (namely, that that a contract should be interpreted, so far as possible, in such a manner as not to permit one party to take advantage of their own breach of that contract), nor the common law principle that the court should not allow a party to benefit from their own wrong, applied because (amongst other things) there was no causal connection between the “wrong” relied upon by the Respondent and the construction and remedy asserted by the Appellant.

The case also raised complex questions about the extent to which a company will be bound by a forged document, either under common law principles of agency and estoppel or under s.44(5), Companies Act 2006. The Upper Tribunal provided helpful guidance (albeit in obiter comments) on an important and previously unresolved question about whether s.44(5) was intended to deem valid a document that had been forged but which, on its face, appeared to have been properly executed. The Upper Tribunal concluded that s.44(5) was not intended to operate in the case of a forgery.

Brooke Lyne appeared for the successful appellant instructed by Vipul Kapoor of Naylor Solicitors LLP.

The judgment can be found here.