Remedies in UK Law

The restitutionary and compensatory provisions of section 5 do not in terms identify the person or persons against whom the remedies are available. But it is difficult to see how the section 5 restitutionary remedy could be available against anyone other than the other party to the transaction in question or the party to whom, under the transaction in question, the investor's money or property had been paid or transferred.

Insofar as Mr. Stamler contends that there is inherent jurisdiction in the court to make effective the remedies that it grants, this seems to me merely another way of submitting that, where the power exists to grant the remedy, there must also be inherent in that power the power to make ancillary orders to make that remedy effective.

But an unsuccessful applicant for accommodation under the Act of 1977, confronted by an adverse decision of the housing authority as to, say, the question of his intentional homelessness, may strictly need not only an order of certiorari to quash the adverse decision but also an order of mandamus to the housing authority to determine the question afresh according to law. I have said that the court has no power to substitute its own decision for that of the housing authority.

It follows that the categories of damages identified above are not mutually exclusive. User damages can be restitutionary: they can be awarded where the claimant has suffered no loss and on the basis that the defendant is ordered to pay a sum by reference to the gain he would otherwise make.

What, however, does distinguish user damages from other compensatory damages is the fact that they are in general awarded because the defendant has made improper use of an asset of the claimant. In economic terms, there has been a transfer of value for which the wrongdoer must account. However, even so, they would under Blake be subject to strict judicial control through the requirement for exceptional circumstances.