Insurance And Reinsurance - 8 March, 2013

FSA v Sinaloa Gold Plc & Ors

Supreme Court rules on whether the FSA should be required to give the normal cross-undertaking to third parties on a freezing order application

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2013/11.html

The earlier decisions in this case have been reported in Weekly Updates 18/11 and 38/11. Applicants for a freezing order usually have to give a standard form of undertaking to pay any damages sustained by either the respondent to the application or any third party if they suffer loss as a consequence of the order (and it subsequently transpires that the grant of the order was not justified). In the case of third parties, though, they are protected whether or not the grant of the order was justified. In this case, the FSA argued that it should not be compelled to give the standard undertaking, on the basis that it should not be liable in damages for anything done or omitted in the discharge of its functions. At first instance the judge held that a law