El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings Plc

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
Judgment Date06 December 1995
Date06 December 1995
CourtChancery Division

Chancery Division

Before Mr Justice Robert Walker

El Ajou
and
Dollar Land Holdings plc

Fraud - tracing - pleading rights of third party

Pleading rights of a third party

Tracing, in equity, depended not on the actual imposition of an equitable charge but on equity's capacity to impose such a charge; the charge was notional. There was no inflexible rule, that a defendant fundholder might, or might not, resist a plaintiff's claim to trace his own money into that fund by pleading the rights of a third party.

Mr Justice Robert Walker so held, on a remission to the Chancery Division by the Court of Appeal (The Times January 3, 1994; (1994) 2 All ER 685) for the purpose of decision on quantum, of an action by the plaintiff, Mr Abdul Ghani El Ajou, against Dollar Holdings plc, based on the knowing receipt by that company of £2.325 million, part of the proceeds of a massive share fraud carried out in Amsterdam by three Canadians between November 1984 and November 1985, which it invested in the acquisition of a site in Battersea.

Mr Roger Ellis for the plaintiff; Mr Romie Tager for the company.

MR JUSTICE ROBERT WALKER said that further evidence before him given by Mr Van Apeldoorn, a member of the Amsterdam Bar, appointed by the Dutch court as trustee in bankruptcy of the Canadians' companies, had established, inter alia, that (a) their share-pushing operation was wholly fraudulent, worthless shares being sold to about 4,000 would-be investors, namely, to the plaintiff and the other 1985 victims; (b) so far as Mr Van Apeldoorn knew, the plaintiff's had been the only individual claim brought against the company, and (c) the plaintiff and he, on the other victims' behalf, had agreed that the proceeds of the present action should be divided 70:30 between the plaintiff and them.

Mr Ellis had submitted that in the light of the 70:30 agreement and the near certainty that no further individual claim would now be made by any of the other victims, there was nothing inequitable in the order he sought, for payment of the whole of the £2.325 million to the plaintiff.

Although one of many, he was the only victim whose lost assets had, to the tune of $6.673 million, been specifically traceable to that sum received by the company.

Mr Tager, submitting that it was open to any of the other 1985 victims similarly to trace their losses to identifiable "laundered money", argued that not the whole, but only a fraction, of that £2.325 million could belong in equity to the...

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128 cases
2 firm's commentaries
  • Who Owns A Bribe?
    • Jersey
    • Mondaq Jersey
    • 9 December 2014
    ...Ltd [1991] 2 AC 548, at para 572. 15 Foskett v McKeown [2001] 1 AC 102, at paras 129-133. 16 El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings plc [1993] 3 All ER 717, at paras 17 Re Hallett's Estate (1879) 13 ChD 696, at paras 726-729. 18 Re Tilley [1967] Ch 1179, at para 1185. 19 Federal Republic of Brazil ......
  • Recent Developments In The Law Of Tracing In The Cayman Islands
    • Cayman Islands
    • Mondaq Cayman Islands
    • 12 July 2022
    ...[871]. 3 Borden (UK) Limited v Scottish Timber Products Limited [1981] Ch. 46, per Buckley LJ. 4 See El Ajou v Dollar Holdings plc [1993] 3 All ER 717, referred to in AHAB v SAAD at paragraphs [882] to [884]. 5 Relfo Limited (in liquidation) v Varsani [2015] 1 BCLC 14; [2014] EWHC Civ 360, ......
14 books & journal articles
  • 'The receipt of what?': Questions concerning third party recipient liability in equity and unjust enrichment.
    • Australia
    • Melbourne University Law Review Vol. 31 No. 1, April 2007
    • 1 April 2007
    ...J); Powell v Thompson [1991] 1 NZLR 597 (Thomas J). (68) Agip [1990] Ch 265, 292-3. See also El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings plc [1993] 3 All ER 717, (69) See, eg, Powell v Thompson [1991] 1 NZLR 597. (70) [1987] Ch 264. (71) Ibid 272-3, 278. Of course, this justification for the acceptance ......
  • Restitution
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2007, December 2007
    • 1 December 2007
    ...for the purpose of the law of tracing (Lonrho plc v Fayed (No 2)[1991] 4 All ER 961 at 971—972; El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings plc[1993] 3 All ER 717 at 734 (reversed on a different point in [1994] 2 All ER 685 (CA)). This is not a remedial trust but a good old-fashioned institutional trust......
  • Restitution
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2008, December 2008
    • 1 December 2008
    ...v Yardley[2002] 2 AC 164 at [105]; Dubai Aluminium Co Ltd v Salaam[2002] 3 WLR 1913 at [87]; El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings Plc[1993] 3 All ER 717 at 738—740. However, it appears that the court in George Raymond Zage III v Rasif David[2008] SGHC 244 has equiparated the two standards, unless......
  • ISSUES CONCERNING COMPLIANCE
    • United Kingdom
    • Emerald Journal of Money Laundering Control No. 4-2, April 2000
    • 1 April 2000
    ...24th June, 1999. (74) MacMillan v Bishopsgate Trust (No 3) [1996] 1 WLR 387, 399, 410, 424; El Ajou v Dollar Land Holdings [1993] 3 All ER 717, at 736. (75) Grupo Torras SA v Al-Sabah (unreported) 24th June, 1999 V.3(a). (76) Ibid. (77) Dubai Aluminium v Salaam [1999] 1 L1 Rep 387, 452; Gru......
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