On 21 June, 2006, the House of Lords overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision in HM Commissioners of Customs & Excise v Barclays Bank. The case concerned the obligations owed by a bank to a third party when served with a freezing injunction, but also raised wider issues about the circumstances in which a tortious duty of care should be owed to a third party in relation to pure economic loss.
Brightstar Systems and Doveblue both owed considerable arrears of VAT to Customs. Both customers held accounts with the bank with substantial credit balances: £1.8m in the case of Brightstar and £3.9m for Doveblue. Customs obtained freezing injunctions to prevent both companies from dissipating those balances. Customs faxed the Brightstar injunction to the bank at 12.33pm on 29 January, 2001. The bank acknowledged receipt by standard letter. Two hours later, at 2.30pm, the bank allowed payments from Brightstar’s account totalling £1.24m. The Dove-blue injunction was faxed to the bank at 11.38am on 30 January, 2001. At 2pm that day, the bank allowed payments totalling £1.06m from its account.
