Price Waterhouse v BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) SA
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 21 October 1991 |
| Date | 21 October 1991 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
Chancery Division
Before Mr Justice Millett
Banking - confidential material - disclosure
If it was in the public interest to require confidential information to be disclosed to the Bank of England in the performance of its supervisory functions under section 1 of the Banking Act 1987, there was at least as great a public interest in disclosure of material to the enquiry set up at the end of July 1991 under the chairmanship of Lord Justice Bingham at the request of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England.
Mr Justice Millett so held in the Chancery Division in proceedings brought by Price Waterhouse against BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) SA and other associated banking institutions.
Mr David Oliver, QC and Mr Paul Girolami for Price Waterhouse; Mr Richard M Sheldon and Ms Susan Prevezer for BCCI and others; Mr William Charles and Mr Philip Havers for the Treasury and the Bank of England.
MR JUSTICE MILLETT said that the enquiry had no statutory power to enforce the attendance of witnesses or to compel the production of documents. Its proceedings were in private.
Price Waterhouse had been asked to submit evidence, together with copies of supporting documents. It was anxious to comply with that request and considered that it had a public duty to cooperate, but most of the material and information in its possession was confidential to BCCI, some was covered by legal professional privilege and much of it by banking confidentiality owed by BCCI to its customers, a duty to which Price Waterhouse was likewise subject.
Other material and information was derived from its role in giving financial advice to the controlling shareholders of BCCI and was confidential to them. BCCI wished to see in advance any evidence which Price Waterhouse intended to present, with a view to giving or withholding its consent. That process would go far towards vitiating the confidentiality of the enquiry, and the speed and effectiveness of its procedures.
Whereas legal professional privilege was normally an answer to compulsory disclosure, confidentiality only afforded protection against voluntary disclosure without the consent of the person to whom the duty of confidentiality was owed.
Had the enquiry been set up under the Tribunals of Enquiry and Evidence Act 1921 it could have compelled disclosure of confidential information, but not of material...
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Subject Index
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Table of cases
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