Put Option in UK Law

The value of SICL's equity portfolio was reported to have decreased as a result of the global deterioration of equity markets. To limit its exposure to equity market volatility a portion of its equity portfolio was hedged with equity put options. This meant that a minimum value would be maintained in the balance sheet for the equities hedged with put options so that in the event of declining share prices the balance sheet value would not decline.

I think that the conferring of a right of this kind as an incident of service is a profit or perquisite which is taxable as such in the year of receipt, so long as the right itself can fairly be given a monetary value, and it is no more relevant for this purpose whether the option is exercised or not in that year than it would be if the advantage received were in the form of some tangible form of commercial property.

I reprehard that, if it has any meaning in law, it means acts done or documents executed by the parties to the "sham" which are intended by them to give to third parties or to the Court the appearance of creating between the parties legal rights and obligation different from the actual legal rights and obligations(if any)which the parties intend to create.

The chances of Mr Joyce obtaining a suitably watertight buyer's option was, in my judgment, 85%. The correspondence, some of which I have described above, is informative. I think Mr Chesters wanted to sell, thought he was getting a good price, and that, had his scheme to replace the promised buyer's option with a seller's option been rumbled, he would have done what had been promised in the Sales Particulars and the Sales memorandum.

That is to adopt too dogmatic an approach to what should in my opinion be a broad, merits-based judgment which takes account of the public and private interests involved and also takes account of all the facts of the case, focusing attention on the crucial question whether, in all the circumstances, a party is misusing or abusing the process of the court by seeking to raise before it the issue which could have been raised before.

In summary these were: first, trying to negotiate with them a means by which they could be entirely repaid; then (in the summer of 2009) dealing with the claims brought against him and Mr Brun personally; then (in the autumn of 2009 and into 2010) trying to negotiate amendments to the LLP Agreement; then (in the summer of 2010) dealing with the summary judgment application; then (in the autumn of 2010) dealing with various matters on the accounts which became very contentious; and finally (in 2011) negotiating a complete settlement with Addax which was not signed off until October 2011.

In this regard I particularly emphasise the importance for my reasoning of factor (d) (award of costs on an indemnity basis). In my view, where a party has acted in the course of litigation in a way that attracts an order of costs against them to be assessed on an indemnity basis, that is a good indicator that that party is to be taken to have assumed to a particularly extensive degree the risk of continuing with the litigation in question.