The Court of Appeal (Asplin LJ, Carr LJ and Sir Timothy Lloyd) handed down judgment today dismissing the appeal by the Taruta parties against the decision of Mr Justice Picken who had rejected their unjust enrichment claim against the Gaiduk parties. The Taruta parties had contended that they were entitled to repayment of a sum of over $80 million which had been paid to the Gaiduk parties under a written agreement made between them, on the basis that there had been a ‘failure of the basis’ by reference to which that payment had been made. They advanced this argument despite the Gaiduk parties having delivered to the Taruta parties the consideration identified in the written agreement. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument. The Court of Appeal judgment (Carr LJ) contains a helpful analysis of this part of the law of unjust enrichment. Laurence Rabinowitz QC was instructed by Nick Marsh and Khaled Khatoun of Quinn Emanuel (with Ben Woolgar and Alexandra Whelan) for the successful respondent in this appeal.
A copy of the approved Judgment is available here.