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Sarah Green and Alan Bogg (eds), Illegality after Patel v Mirza

Document Cited authorities 3 Cited in Related
DOI10.3366/elr.2020.0667
Published date01 September 2020
Date01 September 2020
Pages454-455
Author

The nine-judge decision in Patel v Mirza [2016] UKSC 42, [2017] AC 467 on the effects of illegality in the law of obligations is one of the most important cases produced by the UK Supreme Court since its inception in 2009. Although only one Scottish case (D Geddes (Contractors) Ltd v Neil Johnson Health and Safety Services Ltd [2017] CSOH 42) has so far referred to Patel v Mirza (and then only very briefly), and the Supreme Court did not include Scotland amongst the jurisdictions covered in a comparative survey, there can be no doubt of its authoritative status here. This detailed collection of essays on the decision is therefore both welcome and useful, even though it too lacks a Scottish perspective. (See however E Obiora and J MacLeod “Restitution under an illegal contract: a Scots law perspective on Patel v Mirza” (2018) 26 European Review of Private Law 273.)

The facts of the case were simple, but as so often a simple set of facts not only led to divisions of opinion in the court but also leads the contributors to this collection into variance with each other. This is not only apparent from the substance of their contributions. The editors reveal that at the workshop where the essays were first presented a straw poll showed that nine out of fourteen participants thought Mr Patel's claim should have been denied on moral grounds. The story was that by agreement Patel paid Mirza £620,000 to use to make bets on the performance of certain shares, based on inside information which however failed to materialise. The court held unanimously that Mirza should repay Patel despite the illegality of their agreement but differed on the way this result was to be achieved.

Six of the...

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