Financial Instruments in UK Law

A fiduciary is someone who has undertaken to act for or on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence. A fiduciary must act in good faith; he must not make a profit out of his trust; he must not place himself in a position where his duty and his interest may conflict; he may not act for his own benefit or the benefit of a third person without the informed consent of his principal.

Sigma financed its investments over a 13 year period by debt securities issued or guaranteed by it. It entered into liquidity facilities intended to hedge against market liquidity risks. It entered into financial instruments intended to hedge against currency and interest rate risk. Others provided liquidity facilities, or entered into financial hedging instruments.

In this type of case it is the wording of the instrument which is paramount. The instrument must be interpreted as a whole in the light of the commercial intention which may be inferred from the face of the instrument and from the nature of the debtor's business. Detailed semantic analysis must give way to business common sense: The Antaios [1985] AC 191, 201.

There are, as I see it, a number of serious difficulties with this submission. First, on a natural reading of 2.88(7) it applies to a surplus in the hands of the administrator rather than in the hands of a subsequent liquidator. Read in its context, it seems to direct the administrator as to the application of the surplus which he holds.

A resulting, implied or constructive trust—and it is unnecessary for present purposes to distinguish between these three classes of trust—is created by a transaction between the trustee and the cestui qui trust in connection with the acquisition by the trustee of a legal estate in land, whenever the trustee has so conducted himself that it would be inequitable to allow him to deny to the cestui qui trust a beneficial interest in the land acquired.

Secondly, the claimant must satisfy the court that there is a good arguable case that the claim against the foreign defendant falls within one or more of the classes of case for which leave to serve out of the jurisdiction may be given.

A contract in restraint of trade is one in which a party (the covenanter) agrees with any other party (the covenantee) to restrict his liberty in the future to carry on trade with other persons not parties to the contract in such manner as he chooses.