Hill v Spread Trustee Company Ltd & Anor

The judgment under appeal in this case occupies nearly eighty pages of the law reports ([2005] BPIR 842). It concerns claims made by the trustee in bankruptcy of a Mr Nurkowski to obtain relief under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (“the 1986 Act”) in respect of a settlement made by Mr Nurkowski in favour of his daughter, and in respect of certain charges given by him to the trustees of that settlement. The appellant trustees challenge a number of the judge’s crucial findings of fact. But this appeal also raises a number of important issues of law about claims made under section 423 with which we must also deal. The relevant statutory provisions are set out in the appendix to this judgment. The essence of section 423 of the 1986 Act is that it empowers the court to avoid transactions entered into at any time if made by a person at an undervalue and with the purpose of prejudicing his creditors. As we shall see, section 423 is cast in very wide terms in order to cover the vast range of transactions which might meet the basic criteria which I have just mentioned. As I said in IRC v Hashmi [2002] 2 BCLC 489, 504:

“Section 423 plays an important role in insolvency law. It can moreover apply even though the debtor is not in a formal insolvency … Section [423] is a carefully calibrated section forming part of a carefully calibrated group of sections.”

I have dealt with all the issues that were argued, save as stated in paras 118 and 138 below.

This then is an appeal by Spread Trustee Company Limited and Mr David John Warr, the trustees of the Henry Stanley Nurkowski Maintenance and Settlement Trust (“the trustees”), against the order of HHJ Weeks QC sitting as a deputy Judge of the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division. By his order it was declared, on the application of Mr Richard Hill, Mr Nurkowski’s trustee in bankruptcy, that the settlement dated 10 March 1989 (“the settlement”), of which the trustees are trustees, two legal charges dated 17 April 1996 and 12 August 1996 (respectively “the second legal charge” and “the third legal charge” and collectively “the later charges”) and an assignment dated 21 November 1997 in their favour of a loan account owed to Mr Nurkowski by his company HS and KM Nurkowski Ltd (“the company”) constituted transactions within section 423(3) of the 1986 Act. By way of relief in respect of these transactions, the order provided (1) that the trustees should indemnify the estate of Mr Nurkowski in bankruptcy against any claim by HM Revenue & Customs (“the Revenue”) to set aside a compromise of tax liabilities made with Mr Nurkowski on 30 March 1993 (“the compromise”); (2) that the first legal charge and the second legal charge should be set aside; and (3) that the trustees should repay the sum of £162,051 plus interest to Mr Nurkowski paid to them under the assignment dated 21 November 1997, such sum to be recredited to the amounts owed by him to the trustees.

The judge set out the background in detail in his judgment, and my summary, which follows, is based largely on his judgment. The paragraphs of the judgment of the judge are not numbered and accordingly I will use page references from the report in BPIR. My summary should be read with the report of the judge’s judgment. The numbers in brackets are references to the pages of that report.

The events in issue occurred between 1988 and 2001. I will start with an overview of the facts. Mr Nurkowski, an ice-cream manufacturer and vendor with commercial interests also in building and property development, owned two fields, called respectively OS149 (3½ acres) (“the bottom field”) and OS160 (4½ acres) (the bottom field), at Hilperton, near Trowbridge, Wiltshire. These fields abutted an area of some 200 acres (“the Paxcroft Mead development”) for which Gallagher Limited (“Gallagher”) made an application for planning permission. (Unless otherwise stated, when I refer to OS 149, I include a small parcel of land forming part of the top field which was known as OS 149A). The application for planning permission was made to West Wiltshire District Council and Mr Nurkowski was a member of the planning committee of that Council, though he did not vote on the grant of permission to Gallagher on 4 April 1989. About a month before that resolution, Mr Nurkowski had made a gift into settlement of OS160. The settlement was a newly formed accumulation and maintenance settlement for Mr Nurkowski’s 2 ½ year old daughter, Anna. Those representing Mr Nurkowski advised subsequently the Revenue that OS 160 was worth only £35,000 on its settlement in March 1989. In fact, the judge found that Mr Nurkowski had already received an offer for this field of £700,000 from Gallagher and that Mr Nurkowski knew that £700,000 was the minimum value of OS160. OS149 and OS160 were sold some five months after the settlement for £2m, even though neither field was within the planning permission which had been given.

The Revenue did not accept the valuation of £35,000 for OS 160 put forward by Mr Nurkowski’s advisers. In due course, the Revenue agreed to compromise its claim against Mr Nurkowski in the sum of £160,000. The trustee in bankruptcy takes the view that that compromise was colourable and that the Revenue could now raise a new assessment under section 29 or section 36 of the Taxes Management Act 1970.

Following the receipt of the sale consideration, the trustees made a number of loans to Mr Nurkowski. Between 1994 and 1997 Mr Nurkowski executed charges conferring additional security on the trustees for its loans to him. He also made an assignment to the trustees of the sums owed to him by the company on loan account. The first of these charges is not material for the purposes of this appeal.

We have been provided with a helpful chronology prepared by counsel. In reading the summary below, the following critical dates should be borne in mind:

14 March 1986 Mr Nurkowski acquires OS 149 and OS 160 for £21,000

10 March 1989 gift of OS 160 into settlement

4 April 1989 Gallagher’s planning application granted for land abutting OS 149 and OS 160

1/2 August 1989 OS160 sold to Gallagher (£218,000 paid immediately and £518,000 deferred until 2 February 1991)

10 October 1989 Submission to the Revenue of a valuation of £35,000 for OS160

16 February 1993 No 1 Loan (£250,000) secured over the share certificates representing shares in the company

28 March 1993 No 2 Loan (£198,500) secured over the Lion & Fiddle public house

30 March 1993 compromise between Mr Nurkowski, the trustees and the Revenue

30 March 1993 No 3 Loan (£160,000) secured over land at Cockhill, Trowbridge

19 May 1993 No 4 Loan (£30,000) (no additional security)

29 June 1993 No 5 Loan (£70,000) secured over The Three Lions, Holt, Wiltshire

17 April 1996 the second legal charge. This was an all monies charge which gave the trustees security over Mr Nurkowski’s home, a property called Enniswood

12 August 1996 a field adjoining Enniswood was charged to the trustees – the third legal charge

27 September 1996 all monies charge executed in favour of the trustees ranking behind a charge over the property already given to Lloyds Bank plc (Lloyds)

21 November 1997 assignment by way of charge by Mr Nurkowski in favour of the trustees of his loan account with the company

7 January 1998 the Revenue assess capital gains tax on Mr Nurkowski in respect of the sale of OS 149 in the sum of £436,790.32

28 January 1999 a bankruptcy order was made against Mr Nurkowski on the Revenue‘s petition

4 December 2002 Notice of this application was issued by the trustee in bankruptcy

I will now amplify this summary of events. The judge deals with the planning history (846), and I do not consider that I need set it out. The process was a long and drawn out one, but the judge found that it was generally agreed between Gallagher and the planning officers that OS 160 should eventually be part of the comprehensive development of the area, and that OS 149 might either be developed as an independent site or as a means of access to adjacent land.

Mr Nurkowski’s own accountant was a Mr Holdway. In late 1987 he approached the Revenue on behalf of Mr Nurkowski for their view of the income tax implications of a sale of the land. The Revenue replied that they could not give a tax clearance without more information. So the tax implications of a disposal were under consideration at this early stage.

Gallagher were in touch with Mr Nurkowski before permission was given. In May 1988 they made an offer to buy an option over OS 149 and 160 for £40,000. If the option was exercised, Gallagher would pay 80% of the market value following grant of planning permission. On 12 December 1988, Mr Cox of Gallagher and Miss Foster, representing the agents for Gallagher, met Mr Nurkowski. It was agreed that the negotiations should be put on hold so Mr Nurkowski “could put his own house in order”. He said that he would revert to Gallagher in due course. There is an important issue as to whether in the course of these negotiations Gallagher offered Mr Nurkowski £700,000 for OS 160. Mr Nurkowski’s evidence was that no such offer was made but the judge rejected his evidence on this point.

In January 1989, Mr Nurkowski went to take tax advice from Spicer & Oppenheim. On 9 January 1989, Mr Nurkowski met Miss Horrocks of that firm. The judge set out the material parts of the attendance note prepared by Ms Horrocks at 846G to 847G of the judge’s judgment. In that attendance note, Mr Nurkowski is recorded as saying that he had received an offer of £700,000 for OS 160. The attendance note also stated that it was Mr Nurkowski’s opinion that this sum represented neither the current value of the land nor the value of the land with planning permission. Miss Horrocks’ attendance note states that the main concern of Mr Nurkowski was how to alleviate capital gains tax of about £1m. The issue on which he sought advice is recorded in the following terms:

“He wondered if his offshore company could be used by transferring the land to that company which he realised would trigger off a capital gain by his sale into the company but he hoped [that this] would protect the final greater gain when planning permission was granted [and] the land was sold to the development company. [H]e considers this very urgent and would like action very very quickly…”

Miss Newsham, another representative of Spicer & Oppenheim, spoke to Mr Nurkowski the following day and ascertained his view as to the current market value which he said was in the region of £25,000 to £40,000. He said that he was expecting OS 149 and OS 160 to be worth at least £300,000 and more “if he obtained planning permission in his own right”. He also told Miss Newsham that he expected the district council to grant planning permission in April 1989.

Mr Nurkowski is recorded as saying that the market value of his land was as agricultural land with possibly some hope value thrown in and that it was worth about £5,000 per acre when valued as agricultural land but that it would be worth considerably more in view of the development. On the basis of the offer that he had received the bottom field would be worth £1.5m. He thought that the final offer from the developer would be worth some £2.4m once planning permission was obtained.

Spicer & Oppenheim consulted Reads, a firm of accountants in Guernsey. On 13 January 1989, Mr Donaldson, a partner in Reads, sent his advice by fax. The material parts of that advice are set out at 848G to 849H. The essence of the advice was that the best course would be to set up an accumulation and maintenance settlement for a child with UK trustees, gift into it one of the fields and then immediately appoint foreign trustees in their place (or “export” the settlement to Guernsey). This would enable Mr Nurkowski to argue that any sale of the land by the trustees was not subject to income tax. Mr Nurkowski could make an election to hold over the gain on making the gift into settlement, which could accumulate income and capital gains. There would, however, be a charge to capital gains tax when the settlement was exported, based on the then value of the land. The significant points about this advice for the purposes of this appeal are as follows. Firstly, it proceeded on the basis that there was a sporting chance that Mr Nurkowski would be able to defer capital gains tax or even avoid it altogether if he formed a settlement. But success was not guaranteed. Mr Nurkowski might find that he had incurred the expenses of setting up a settlement for no purpose. Secondly, the advice supports the inference that when Mr Nurkowski proceeded to make the gift into settlement of OS160 he was simply following the advice he had received from Spicer & Oppenheim. Thirdly, Mr Donaldson must have thought that the land even at that stage was worth more than its agricultural value since he talks of transferring “(say) £100,000 worth of the land” into a discretionary settlement (849C).

There was a further meeting on 16 January 1989 at the offices of Spicer & Oppenheim in Bristol. A note was taken by Miss Goillau. She recorded that Mr Nurkowski thought that the market value of the land, meaning the then current market value, was £700,000, the amount of Gallagher’s offer for OS 160 plus a further £100,000/150,000 for OS 149 (850C). The meeting note also records that Mr Nurkowski had a meeting with his developers planned for the following Wednesday as “he has put a proposal to them for a joint venture whereby he provides” OS 160. There is therefore in this file note a further reference to the £700,000 offer and to active negotiations for the sale of the land.

The deed setting up an accumulation and maintenance trust of Mr Nurkowski’s daughter Anna then aged 2½ years was executed on 10 March 1989. The original trustees were UK residents. The deed contained a clause (clause 17) excluding the settlor and his spouse from any benefit from the capital or income of the settlement. In due course the trustees made substantial loans to Mr Nurkowski. It was suggested in argument that the loans did not involve a breach of clause 17. We expressed our surprise at that suggestion but we do not have to decide if it is right or not but note that the Revenue might reasonably have taken the view that as a result of this clause Mr Nurkowski could not as a result arrange a loan from the settlement. After execution of the deed, OS 160 (the bottom field) was simultaneously gifted into the settlement. On 13 March 1989, the appellants replaced the original trustees and the settlement was thereby “exported” to Guernsey (852A).

The planning committee of the West Wiltshire District Council approved Gallagher’s planning application on 4 April 1989. Mr Nurkowski was not present when this business was taken. Within a few weeks Mr Nurkowski had re-opened negotiations with Gallaghers’ agent, Mrs Foster, and received offers from other developers. There is a curious letter from Mrs Foster to Gallagher of 24 April 1989, set out at 852B to G, in which Mrs Foster states that Mr Nurkowski had been under the incorrect impression that his land had planning permission and that he was looking for an option arrangement with Gallagher, and she also ends the letter by stating that Mr Nurkowski had been “a good ally” and encouraging Gallagher to do a deal with him. The judge makes no findings as to what she meant by these last matters and indeed Mrs Foster was unable to enlighten the court what she meant when she was cross-examined. It seems unlikely that Mr Nurkowski, a member of the planning committee, would have been unaware of the fact that his fields were outside the permission that was granted. In April 1989 Mr Nurkowski also opened negotiations with other developers, such as Beazer Homes.

However that may be, Gallagher did not leave the matter in Mrs Foster’s hands. Mr Cox took over the negotiations and agreed with Mr Nurkowski that he would sell OS 149 and OS 160 for a total aggregate price of £2m. The purchase of the bottom field was not conditional on planning permission but the consideration was to be paid in part as a deposit and part was to be deferred for a maximum of two years. The purchase of the top field was however conditional on planning permission.

The original deal provided that the price for OS160 would be paid outright without any deferral (853C). In the course of negotiating the contract, Mr Boyd, Mr Nurkowski’s solicitor, took tax advice on behalf of Mr Nurkowski and the settlement. At one stage, Mr Nurkowski considered an exchange of land between the settlement and himself as the bottom field was worth more and Gallaghers only wanted to enter into a conditional contract for the top field (856E). Further negotiations took place between Mr Nurkowski, Mr Boyd and Gallagher and a contract for the sale of the bottom field was prepared and signed by the trustees for £1.25m. in early June 1989. At that time OS 149 was agreed to be sold for £875,000. But the agreement was then renegotiated without the active participation of the trustees. The parties then executed contracts whereunder consideration (£2m) was apportioned as to £740,000 for the bottom field (the settlement’s property) and £1,260,000 for Mr Nurkowski’s property. The consideration for the sale of OS 160 was payable in two instalments, a deposit of £220,000 and the balance being due in February 1991. In the case of OS 149 the deal was structured as to one acre as an outright sale for £378,000 payable on completion and as to the balance as a put option exercisable by Mr Nurkowski at a price of £882,000 by 8 January 1993. In due course Mr Nurkowski exercised his option against Gallagher. Accordingly the contracts for the top field were not in the event conditional on planning permission. Completion took place on 2 August 1989. The price paid was wholly remarkable given the lack of development prospects for the land but that would of course not prevent the incurring of tax.

There was no explanation for why the price was reapportioned in the way described, other than that Mr Nurkowski decided that after all he want a larger slice of the profits than before. It is doubtful whether the trustees took separate advice before accepting the renegotiated contract. If, as seems likely, they did not do so, that is evidence of their willingness to do Mr Nurkowski’s bidding, rather than act as independent trustees. The renegotiation of the contract also shows Mr Nurkowski’s intense interest in money matters. The judge’s assessment of him was that he was an astute business man (914H).

Shortly before the renegotiated contracts were exchanged, Mr Boyd arranged for OS 160 to be valued by Mr Nicolson of Carter Jonas on the basis of sale of the freehold with vacant possession as at 16 March 1989. Mr Boyd did not disclose the negotiations with Gallagher: the judge held that neither Mr Boyd nor Mr Nicolson knew about the offer of £700,000 in December 1988. Mr Nicolson made enquiries as to whether there was any planning potential in OS 160 and the planning officer told him that this field had no planning hope at all. On 14 July 1989 Mr Nicolson provided a written valuation of OS 160 in the sum of £35,000 which was submitted to the Revenue. The transaction with Gallagher was in due course completed.

In November 1990 the district valuer asked for further information about the land.

At Mr Nurkowski’s suggestion, the settlement bought Mr Nurkowski’s land at Cockhill, Trowbridge in April 1990 for £130,000. In February 1991 the settlement agreed to lend £510,000 to Mr Nurkowski to help him settle his capital gains tax bill arising on the sale of that part of OS 149/149A which was sold outright. Interest was agreed at 1% over base rate, with six monthly rests. This was in due course secured by a loan agreement secured by an assignment by Mr Nurkowski of his rights against Gallaghers under his put option in respect of Field 149.

In December 1991 Mr Nurkowski was assessed for £30,000 tax in respect of the sale of the Cockhill land. Mr Nurkowski’s accountant said that he was not in a position to pay.

In April 1992 the Revenue sought information about the sale of OS 160 from Gallagher.

On 26 May 1992, Mr Nurkowski made an offer to buy a public house called the Lion & Fiddle for £150,000. This did not in the event proceed at this stage but the settlement lent £10,000 in cash to Mr Nurkowski on 8 July 1992.

In June 1992, the district valuer told the Revenue that he could not see why the value of OS160 in March 1989 should be less than the amount paid by Gallagher in August 1989.

According to a document prepared by Mr Gardner of the trustees, on 14 July 1992 Mr Nurkowski and Mr Gardner had a meeting at which Mr Nurkowski said that he was in dispute with the Revenue over valuation and that he therefore wanted to dispose of as many of his assets as he could to the settlement. He would not be able to repay the loan due to the settlement before January 1993 and he would then either transfer assets or repay in cash which could be used to buy assets from him.

On 12 November 1992, a new district valuer advised his colleagues in the Revenue that OS 160 was worth £650,000 as at 16 March 1989.

In December 1992, Mr Nurkowski (having exercised his put option) became liable to pay a further £352,000 tax in respect of the sale of the balance of OS 149 payable in December 1993. He also owed some £665,000 to the settlement. He and Mr Boyd agreed to offer to repay one half of the monies owed to the settlement. The trustees accepted this proposal and that the repayment should be made out of the proceeds of the consideration outstanding from the sale of OS149.

Shortly after this, Lloyds Bank plc, with which the company had a loan account, sought a reduction in the company’s overdraft.

On 29 January 1993, Mr Boyd had a meeting with the Revenue in order to negotiate the value of the land sold to Gallagher. He told the Revenue that the sale to Gallagher had only been secured at the last minute (879H). Mr Boyd told the Revenue that no deal had been concluded before the settlement had taken place.

In a telephone conversation on 3 February 1993, as recorded by Mr Fuller of the Revenue, Mr Boyd told Mr Fuller that Mr Nurkowski was “very heavily in debt. He owed substantial amounts to two banks, particularly in respect of his company’s account. The £880,000 realised last month had wholly gone to settle the money owed to the bank.” (881E). He said Mr Nurkowski “simply did not have the wherewithal to meet even the £143,000 and was relying on being able to raise this amount from the bank by way of loan”. Mr Fuller asked for a statement of Mr Nurkowski’s financial position. Mr Boyd said that he had drafted a balance sheet and it showed that Mr Nurkowski was “in the red by some £350,000”. In answer to a question from Mr Fuller Mr Boyd said that “he understood that the funds to buy the investments held by the settlement had been financed by bank loans” (881-2).

In February 1993, Mr Nurkowski agreed to buy two public houses, the Three Lions and the Nettleton Arms for £52,000 plus VAT and £150,000 respectively. Mr Boyd told the trustees that Mr Nurkowski would be drawing down on his loan arrangements with them to make a number of acquisitions. The terms as agreed meant that Mr Nurkowski would not have to pay any interest to the trustees for five years.

In February 1993, Mr Nurkowski made a further offer to purchase the Lion & Fiddle public house.

On 15 February 1993, Mr Fuller telephoned Mr Boyd. Mr Fuller referred to the substantial assets of the settlement and raised the question whether the trustees would lend money to Mr Nurkowski to pay his tax. Mr Boyd said that he thought that the trustees would not make any loan to Mr Nurkowski except on commercial terms. Mr Boyd said that he would need instructions from Mr Nurkowski. Mr Nurkowski instructed him to continue to negotiate.

On 16 February 1993, the trustees lent £250,000 to Mr Nurkowski so that the company’s overdraft with Lloyds Bank could be paid off. This loan carried interest at 1.5% above Lloyds Bank base rate, payable at six-monthly intervals, and was secured over the shares in the company. In fact the last audited accounts of the company, drawn up as at 31 March 1991, showed that the company was then insolvent but the trustees did not ask to see these accounts. The terms of the loan were set out in a loan agreement, which the judge called “Loan 1”. Clauses 5 and 6 of Loan 1 provided for the making of further advances and the grant of further security as follows:

“5.

It is intended that further sums may from time to time be advanced to the borrower. The parties acknowledge that all such further advances should be on the same terms and conditions as the principal loan and as are contained in this agreement.

6….The Borrower will deposit such further security from time to time in connection with further advances as the trustees shall reasonably require …”

Meanwhile, Mr Boyd continued his negotiations with the Revenue and made an offer of compromise of £160,000. He reported the offer to Mr Nurkowski, who was proceeding to acquire three public houses.

On 24 February 1993, the Revenue accepted the offer of £160,000 made by Mr Boyd. On 26 February 1993, contracts were exchanged for the purchase for the Lion & Fiddle for £165,000 plus VAT.

On 1 March 1993, Mr Nurkowski instructed Mr Boyd to apply to the settlement for a further loan of £198,500 to complete the purchase of the Lion & Fiddle and also a loan of £160,000 to pay the Revenue. The trustees agreed to make both loans. The loan of £198,500 was recorded in an agreement which the judge called “Loan 2”. It was dated 25 March 1993. The terms as to interest and other terms in Loan 1 applied. This loan was secured by a charge over the Lion & Fiddle public house.

The loan of £160,000 was recorded in a loan agreement dated 30 March 1993 which the judge called “Loan 3”. This was not supplemental to Loan 1 and was interest free for up to twenty years as the terms of this loan provided that it was not repayable for 20 years or if earlier 28 days after the death of Mr Nurkowski. Mr Nurkowski was given a right to pre-pay the loan. The trustees asked for security against Enniswood House. Mr Nurkowski refused to offer Enniswood House as security but gave security over the balance of the land at Cockhill not previously sold to the trustees. He gave an indemnity to the trustees against liabilities arising by reason of the trustees making the loan free of interest. Clause 5 of Loan 3 contained the following provision for further security:

On 30 March 1993, Mr Nurkowski signed an agreement of compromise with the Revenue. The Revenue agreed to accept the sum of £160,000 in full and final settlement of all tax liabilities of whatever description arising on the making of the settlement, on the sale of the land in August 1989 and on the disposal of the Cockhill land. That sum of £160,000 was duly paid.

In May 1993, Mr Nurkowski asked the trustees for yet more loans. On 19 May the trustees agreed to lend a further £30,000. This was recorded in a loan agreement which the judge called “Loan 4”, which was supplemental to loan 1. There was no additional security for this loan (890G).

In June 1993, Mr Boyd asked the trustees for a loan of a further £90,000 to make a further property acquisition. The trustees indicated that they would be willing to lend their remaining cash (£40,000) and to liquidate their remaining investments. Mr Nurkowski through Mr Boyd asked the trustees to do this. Accordingly the trustees made a further loan of £70,000 to Mr Nurkowski, which was recorded in a loan agreement dated 29 June 1993 which the judge called “Loan 5”. The security was the Three Lions public house which Mr Nurkowski had bought for £52,000 plus VAT. The terms were those applying to Loan 1.

On 23 November 1993, the trustees had to ask Mr Nurkowski to lend some small sums so that they could pay the tax due from them as trustees. Later they asked for small sums to pay their own fees but none of these sums were paid.

Meanwhile Mr Nurkowski had received a further assessment for £372,457 in respect of the gain on OS 149. Mr Boyd told Mr Nurkowski’s accountant that he had no sums to pay the tax. The balance sheet of the settlement as at 5 April 1994 showed that the debts then owed by Mr Nurkowski to the settlement amounted to £762,729.

On 16 June 1994, the trustees asked for the security for the loans made to Mr Nurkowski to be increased. On 4 November 1994, Mr Boyd made a number of proposals to the trustees, including a proposal for a second charge over Enniswood House. On 24 November 1994, Pritchard Englefield & Tobin, solicitors, wrote to Mr Boyd on behalf of the trustees asking for a reduction in the borrowings or an increase in the security offered. Their letter stated:

Mr Boyd replied on 30 December 1994, stating that Mr Nurkowski was unlikely to be able to reduce the borrowings but was willing to offer further security. Mr Boyd stated that he intended to continue to negotiate with the trustees direct. Nothing further was heard from Pritchard Englefield & Tobin.

On 30 December 1994, Mr Nurkowski executed a legal charge over the Lion & Fiddle in favour of the trustees.

In May 1995, having taken advice from counsel, Mr Boyd told the trustees that he could no longer act for them. On 7 October 1995, Mr Nurkowski told the trustees that he was unable to pay their fees. The Revenue continued to press both the trustees and Mr Nurkowski in respect of tax due.

In February 1996 the trustees asked Mr Nurkowski if the land at Cockhill could be sold “to provide some liquidity for the trust”, although this was a trust asset. On 27 March 1996, Mr Nurkowski sold the Three Lions public house to the company and the trustees released the charge without requiring any repayment of the debts due from Mr Nurkowski. On 17 April 1996, Mr Nurkowski executed a second charge over Enniswood in favour of the trustees. In August 1996 and February 1997, Mr Nurkowski provided the trustees with further security over property he owned.

On 23 October 1997, the trustees wrote to Mr Nurkowski stating that they were only willing to allow the loans to Mr Nurkowski to remain outstanding if they were satisfied that the security was adequate. On 4 December 1997 the trustees wrote to Mr Boyd saying that the trustees would like to have the maximum security available and that they would be pleased if Mr Boyd would pursue that matter with Mr Nurkowski.

On 21 November 1997, Mr Nurkowski assigned to the trustees all the indebtedness of the company to himself. This was absolute in its terms but it was common ground that it was given by way of security only.

On 30 June 1998, the Revenue made an assessment on Mr Nurkowski in the sum of £437,147 tax plus interest on the gain on OS 149.

In August 1998, Mr Nurkowski was served with a statutory demand in respect of the unpaid tax. On 12 January 1999, Mr Nurkowski was served with a bankruptcy petition and on 28 January 1999 a bankruptcy order was made against him.

On 21 January 1999, the trustees made a demand for repayment of £548,500 being the amount outstanding of the monies lent by them, plus interest due thereon of £311,458, even though some of these monies could not be rendered due on demand.

Mr Hill was appointed trustee in bankruptcy. Mr Boyd told Mr Hill that he acted for the settlement and had not acted for Mr Nurkowski for some time.

In his general observations about the witnesses, the judge said:

“Mr Nurkowski was a dreadful witness. At times he did not even attempt to make plausible replies to questions and his evidence was at odds with the contemporary documents and the likely chain of events. I find that he was completely dishonest and I can place no reliance on anything he said.”

The judge was also critical of Mr Boyd. He said that Mr Boyd was not prepared to tell a direct lie but was a master of what Kipling called the “truthful answer that tells the blacker lie” (906C). By way of example he held that he had wrongly misrepresented to the trustees that the reapportionment of the consideration for the sale of OS 149 and OS 160 was Gallagher’s idea.

The judge then made his findings in respect of the argument that the settlement was a sham. There is no appeal against that part of his judgment so I need say no more about it. At 914B, the judge turned to the claim under section 423 of the 1986 Act. He held that Mr Nurkowski had three purposes in making the settlement, namely an understandable and proper intention to provide for his daughter, a proper intention to defer tax on the property and a purpose to evade tax by pretending that there was little difference between the current value of the land and the cost to him on acquisition in 1986. The judge held that this was so even if Mr Nurkowski had intended to elect to hold over the tax payable on the gift into settlement as there would have been at least a partial clawback when the settlement was exported. The judge continued:

“Mr Nurkowski thought, until he was later corrected by Miss Foster, that OS 160 was going to get planning permission in April. He therefore decided to conceal the current value of the land and to endeavour to persuade the Inland Revenue that it had little or no hope value in March 1989. He was aware that he should have taken action some time ago, but he hoped that by misrepresenting the current value he would be able to achieve the benefit he would have had if he had settled the land in 1987. I find that, as Miss Newsham recorded, he had an offer in 1988 of £700,000 for OS160 and he was aware that that was probably its minimum value at the time. I do not find Miss Foster’s evidence to the contrary convincing she was not a party to Gallagher’s negotiations.” (914F) (Italics added)

The judge went on to hold that although Mr Nurkowski instructed Mr Boyd to give him tax advice he did not give him anything like the same information that he had given Spicer & Oppenheim in January. He held that Mr Nurkowski had deliberately concealed the offer he had received for the land from his advisers in the summer of 1989. He found that neither Mr Boyd nor Mr Nicolson knew of it: it is indeed the trustees’ case that Mr Boyd did not know of the £700,000 offer (appellants’ skeleton argument page 23, para. 64(iii)). He held that he could infer that it was Mr Nurkowski’s intention in March 1989 not to reveal that offer or the extent of the interest shown by Gallagher in 1988 to the Revenue, and that one of his purposes in making the settlement was to prejudice the interests of the Revenue by inducing them to make a wrong assessment of capital gains tax. The judge held that he could not do this without the settlement because if he retained the land the capital gain would be the difference between the cost adjusted for indexation, and the sale price. The judge held that although this was not his sole or dominant purpose this was positively intended and a factor which substantially motivated him. The judge rejected the submission that it was the deception not the settlement which caused any prejudice.

“The settlement was an essential part of the purpose. If I buy petrol, I can say that I do so for the purpose of making a fire, although I cannot make the fire without buying matches.” (915B)

The judge rejected a defence that the claim was statute barred. He held that the claim under section 423 was a specialty and that section 8(1) of the Limitation Act 1980 applied. He held that the action could not have arisen before the bankruptcy order was made. Since that order had been made on 28 January 1999 the application was not statute- barred.

The judge also rejected the argument that the Revenue was not a victim for the purpose of section 423(5) because it had entered into a compromise with Mr Nurkowski. He held that the question whether section 423(3) was satisfied had to be determined at the time the transaction was entered into. If his interests had not actually been prejudiced that might be a matter to be taken into account when the court gave relief.

The judge considered a number of the transactions under which Mr Nurkowski had given security over his assets in favour of the trustees. In particular he held that section 423 did not apply to the security given for the loans made in 1991 and 1993. The aggregate amount which Mr Nurkowski borrowed from the settlement was £1,228,500. The 1991 transaction had been repaid and the 1993 loans were not within section 423. He held that the charge over the Lion & Fiddle on 30 December 1994 was outside section 423 because it was made pursuant to a contractual obligation to perfect security on demand from the trustees. However he held that the charges over Enniswood and the land at the rear of that property, in April and August 1996 respectfully, and the assignment of the loan account in November 1997 were transactions within section 423. These transactions involved the grant of security for loans already made and although it might appear that the trustees had given consideration in the form of forbearance from enforcing their loans, in fact the trustees’ pressure was “synthetic” and no consideration was given. The purpose was to put assets beyond the reach of the Revenue.

In the light of his findings the judge heard further argument as to the appropriate form of order and gave the relief described in para. 3 of this judgment and made orders for the payment of costs.

The following are the issues which arise on the judge’s findings of fact:

The following are the issues of law which arise on this appeal:

In the course of the hearing of this appeal an application was made to amend the grounds of appeal to include new points of law as to the form of relief that the judge should have granted and in addition a point which was not investigated at trial as to whether the second and third charges were granted pursuant to clause 5 (the covenant to provide such further security as the trustees might reasonably require) in Loan 3. We granted the application to raise new points of law as to relief, which were not opposed. We refused permission to amend the grounds of appeal in respect of the remaining issue. It raised the issue of the reasonableness of any requirement by the trustees, and this was not investigated at the trial as it was not raised by the appellants until after all the witnesses other than Mr Boyd had by then given their evidence. Indeed we have not been shown any evidence that the trustees were seeking to invoke this clause in any event.

A number of issues arise on this appeal but have been stood over for hearing following the handing down of this judgment. Those further issues are therefore not dealt with in this judgment. They include issues as to costs and:

The judge could not have concluded that the settlement was a transaction to which section 423 applied unless he had found that one of Mr Nurkowski’s purposes in entering into it on 10 March 1989 was to prejudice the interests of the Revenue. If therefore Mr Nurkowski only formed that intention at a later date, for example when he saw Mr Nicolson’s valuation of OS 160, or if he had never formed anything that might be described in law as a “purpose”, the settlement could not be avoided under section 423.

An unusual feature of this case is that the settlement alone could not prejudice the Revenue. It was the failure to reveal the offer of £700,000 made in December 1988 (if made) for the purposes of valuing the land vested in the settlement that was capable of prejudicing the Revenue. It would indeed succeed in prejudicing the Revenue if it led to an incorrect valuation of the land and that valuation caused the Revenue to agree a lower value for it than it would otherwise have done. On the other hand if there had been no settlement there would have been no charge to tax and no valuation. Mr Nicolson’s valuation was incomplete for the Revenue’s purposes since at it took no account of any prior offer for OS 160. However, the position is further complicated by the fact that the Revenue did not rely on Mr Nicolson’s valuation but on internal advice as to the value of OS 160. The position is yet further complicated by the fact that the Revenue proceeded to enter into a compromise with Mr Nurkowski and to relinquish its claim to assess tax arising out of the gift into settlement. However, the Revenue certainly was a form of future creditor by reason of the settlement. Moreover, its position is that in the events which have happened there are still claims to tax and interest of about £270,000 arising out of the gift into settlement, and that the compromise does not prevent these claims from being advanced. The Revenue also claims tax pursuant to section 739 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 as a result of loans made by the trustees to Mr Nurkowski.

The judge did not decide whether the Revenue was correct about being able to reopen the compromise. Indeed he could not do so in a way that would bind the Revenue because the Revenue was not a party to the application. He did not, however, dismiss the application on the basis that it had not been shown that the Revenue was a victim who still had a claim at the date of the trial. He fashioned the relief in a way which he considered was appropriate to deal with the situation that the Revenue might or might be shown later to be a victim in relation to the tax due as a result of the gift into settlement. Whether he gave appropriate relief is not in issue at this stage. The point to be made at this stage is that this is a most unusual case; in the usual situation the bankrupt has entered into a transaction which removes assets from the reach of a creditor or creditors and has a direct effect on their ability to recover their debts, and that creditor or those creditors remain unpaid at the date of the trial. Here, as I have said the settlement did not as such prejudice the Revenue and indeed the Revenue received a sum which at the time it accepted in full discharge of the tax due in respect of the gift into settlement.

The appeal must be considered at two levels. First, the court must examine whether the judge’s findings of fact can be successfully challenged. Then, the court must consider the questions of law. It should be borne in mind, however, that, while questions of fact have been separated out for ease of analysis, there are in some cases closely connected issues of law which are considered separately.

This is an appeal against the judge’s finding of fact. Accordingly, the only issue here is whether the judge was entitled to make a finding that Gallagher made an offer of £700,000 in December 1988. Mr Nurkowski’s evidence was that no such offer was made. Mr Cox of Gallagher was not called to give evidence, but Miss Foster, who represented Gallagher’s agents, was called and she denied that an offer of £700,000 had been made. Miss Newman submits that the existence of such an offer conflicted with Mr Cox’s file note made in April 1992 in preparation for the inspection of his file by the Revenue. She also submits that it is more probable that Gallagher offered to buy merely an option over OS 160 and that Mr Nurkowski merely exaggerated the position when he had meetings with Spicer & Oppenheim in January 1989.

Miss Newman further submits that the question whether such an offer was made was irrelevant because the question at issue as between Mr Boyd and the Revenue was whether the £740,000 agreed to be paid by Gallagher in August 1989 was significantly more than market value. I do not accept this submission. If an offer of £700,000 was made in December 1988 it was clearly material to determining the market value at March 1989.

The three contemporaneous attendance notes prepared by Spicer & Oppenheim record statements by Mr Nurkowski that Gallagher had made an offer of £700,000 in December 1988. Mr Nurkowski’s denials in evidence that such an offer had been made were partly based on the lack of a written offer.

Mr Nurkowski had clearly been interested in disposing of his land for some time, as the enquiry which Mr Holdway made of the Revenue in late 1987 demonstrates. Moreover, this is confirmed by the negotiations with other developers after the grant of planning permission in respect of the main development. In normal circumstances it would not be expected that developers would be keen to acquire sites on the periphery of the main development which did not have planning permission but that was not the case in respect of these two sites.

The judge took the view that there were negotiations between Gallagher and Mr Nurkowski to which Miss Foster was not a party. Her suggestion that Mr Nurkowski thought that his land had planning permission is difficult to accept having regard to Mr Nurkowski’s involvement in the planning matter. It was therefore open to the judge to reject her evidence that no negotiations had taken place in December 1988. His conclusion was supported by contemporaneous documents.

In my judgment, particularly in the light of the Spicer & Oppenheim attendance notes, the judge was entitled to make the finding that Gallagher had made an offer to Mr Nurkowski to acquire OS 160 in December 1988. On no less than three occasions Mr Nurkowski is recorded as saying that such an offer had been made. Moreover, Mr Nurkowski said he wanted to proceed as quickly as he could and one of the reasons why he might have wished to do that was to make sure the December offer from Gallagher was not lost.

Again this is an appeal against the judge’s findings of fact. The judge inferred that one of the purposes in setting up the settlement was to evade tax by pretending that there was little difference between the cost of OS 160 to him and its value as at March 1989. To do this, Mr Nurkowski had concealed the offer of £700,000 from his adviser, Mr Boyd, and from Mr Nicolson.

Miss Newman focuses on the judge’s general assessment of Mr Nurkowski as a witness. She submits that the judge was not entitled to find that Mr Nurkowski was “completely dishonest” and that the judge should have given specific examples and reasons for finding that he was dishonest. The judge failed to make allowance for the fact that the cross-examination was conducted (by Mr Stephen Davies QC) in what she submitted was a bullying way. She submits that the judge should have made express allowance for this conduct. In addition, insufficient allowance was made for the fact that Mr Nurkowski was severely dyslexic: at the trial Miss Newman made an application that when he was to be cross-examined on a document it should first be read to him. The judge said he would make every allowance for Mr Nurkowski’s disability. In my judgment he was right not to prescribe how Mr Davies should cross-examine from the outset. The judge intervened from time to time in the cross-examination so that Mr Nurkowski was given a proper opportunity to answer a question. Miss Newman submits that he did not do so sufficiently.

By way of further example, Miss Newman submits that the cross-examiner’s approach to Mr Boyd was so aggressive that he was paralysed and unable to answer questions in a way which put his evidence in its best light: she described him as “a rabbit stuck in the headlights”. She added that her objections to this approach were overruled by the judge or waved aside without reasons.

Miss Newman informed us that of the evidence of Miss Foster was interrupted because she broke into tears. She declined the judge’s offer of a break. I do not see from the transcript that any improper pressure was brought to bear on this witness in the cross-examination which led up to that interruption.

In relation to Mr Nurkowski and Mr Boyd, Miss Newman’s submission clearly raises serious issues. However, there is nothing in the grounds of appeal to support the way the submission is put. There is a general ground of appeal that the judge’s findings on such matters as purpose were against the weight of the evidence, but that does not of itself cover a submission that the judge gave too much weight to the evidence of particular witnesses because he failed to take into account that they had unfairly been pressurised into giving their answers. It does not give the respondent proper notice of the points to be made. Furthermore, the submission is not substantiated by the necessary evidence. This court only has the transcript of the evidence. Some aspects of the alleged bullying would not be recorded in the transcripts, such as tone of voice, rapid fire of questioning and so forth. I can see from the transcript that for instance there were comments by the cross-examiner in the course of the cross-examination which offended the rule that advocates should not express any personal opinion on the matters in issue. That should not have occurred. There were also instances in the extracts shown to the court where a number of comments made by the cross-examiner in the course of cross-examination were highly critical of the witness. These comments too should not have been made. The duty of the advocate is at all times to be courteous to witnesses and, if this does not occur, the judge should intervene. However, the responsibility does not rest only on the judge. If the judge does not intervene, counsel for the other side should consider whether to object. We do not see that that occurred very often in this case, and if counsel’s the objections are brushed aside counsel needs to make a general statement which is recorded in the transcript to explain why counsel will not be intervening on every occasion and reserving all the parties’ rights. Needless to say, cross-examination of a witness that is excessive may also lead to any answers that are favourable to the cross-examiner being rejected in any event, and so even apart from being discourteous the technique may be self-defeating.

Miss Newman has prepared a file of extracts from transcripts with her comments interposed. I have used this file as the basis of making my criticisms of the cross-examination in the last paragraph. But some of the comments which she makes in those comments in my judgment are not fair criticisms of the cross-examiner. His role was to elicit answers from which the judge could draw some very serious inferences against Mr Nurkowski and Mr Boyd. In all the circumstances I would reject Miss Newman’s submission that the judge’s findings of fact against the appellants can be set aside because of the conduct of the cross-examination of these witnesses. This was a very experienced judge and in making findings of fact he would be well practised at making all the allowances which need to be made for witnesses, particularly in the situation where their reputation is at stake. There is no evidence to suggest that the approach had a material adverse effect on the witnesses. It would not be fair to the respondents for this court to proceed on the basis that they were so affected unless there was evidence to that effect to which the respondents had had an opportunity to reply.

I now turn to the question whether the crucial finding of purpose was a finding which the judge was not entitled to make. The judge gave few clues as to how he reached his finding. The test whether Mr Nurkowski had the necessary intention is a subjective test: the judge had to be satisfied that he actually had the purpose, not that a reasonable person in his position would have it. On the other hand, the judge could infer that such a purpose existed even if Mr Nurkowski himself denied it.

It is incontrovertible that Mr Nurkowski had tax planning advice which suggested a gift into settlement. At first sight therefore this looks like a case where the lay client merely followed his advisers’ advice, and left it to them to provide the necessary information to the Revenue. Section 423 does not prevent a person from acting on legitimate tax avoidance advice in this way. After all Mr Nurkowski’s case is that he did not try to hide anything from Mr Boyd, to whom he gave Spicer & Oppenheim’s contact details. Mr Boyd could if he had followed up those leads have found out what Mr Nurkowski had told Spicer & Oppenheim. The judge did not refer to this evidence. It was always possible that Mr Nurkowski had no intention of deceiving the Revenue. He simply found later that Mr Nicolson was prepared to give a valuation which just happened to give him a benefit in tax terms which he was not expecting. Mr Nicolson was not on the scene at 10 March 1989. There is a risk that the judge saw that the sale of OS 160 and OS 149 occurred within a short period after March 1989 and therefore assumed that Mr Nurkowski must have intended throughout to set up the settlement with a view to getting an incorrect valuation which would lead the Revenue to assess him with far less tax than he would otherwise have to pay. Did the judge work backwards from what happened in July and August 1989 and conclude that the purpose must have been to conceal the gain in March 1989? It can be said that the fact that the sale occurred so soon after the grant of planning permission goes against the idea that Mr Nurkowski intended to conceal the existence of an earlier offer from Gallagher. It is said that he would have put more distance between the offer and the eventual deal if he really intended this.

The difficulty with these arguments is that, taking the judge’s findings step by step, the judge’s conclusion was that Mr Nurkowski had had an offer from Gallagher in December 1988, and that Mr Nurkowski’s evidence to the contrary was untrue. His subsequent actions have to be viewed in the light of those findings. Moreover, it is common ground that Mr Boyd did not know of the offer and Mr Nurkowski did not expressly inform him of it. It was clearly a relevant matter to be mentioned to his solicitor and therefore the fact that it was not expressly disclosed was a factor for which there was no real explanation: it is hardly an answer to say that Mr Boyd could have found the information out for himself if he had contacted Spicer & Oppenheim. In addition, Mr Nurkowski wanted money in a hurry. He clearly regarded the settlement as a vehicle of his own and that is why he felt able to renegotiate the contract without the participation of the trustees in a way that disadvantaged the settlement. It must have been obvious to him the law did not actually allow him to do that. He was very familiar with the tax issues and with the importance of land values. These points are apparent from the Spicer & Oppenheim attendance notes. There is nothing in Mr Boyd’s attendance notes which we have seen that suggests that Mr Nurkowski needed detailed advice on these issues. Mr Nurkowski was experienced in doing property deals. Moreover the chronology of events shows that Mr Nurkowski was unwilling to pay tax and regularly delayed paying it, all of which demonstrates a constant awareness in what he did of tax implications. The memo of 16 July 1992 referred to above is subsequent evidence of his desire to ensure that the Revenue recovered as little as possible.

As to the lie in relation to the £700,000, the judge could, as Charles J had done in Carman v Yates [2005] BPIR 476, have reminded himself of the direction, known as the Lucas direction, used by judges when summing up to juries that a person may have several different reasons to lie and the fact that he lies on one occasion or about certain matters does not necessarily mean that he did so on other occasions or on other matters as well (see R v Lucas [1981] 1 QB 720 and R v Middleton [2000] TLR 293). A tribunal must consider whether there were special circumstances which would help explain why he lied on past occasions. The need to do this, however, is well known to judges and there is no need for them to give themselves an express direction.

In my judgment, in the light of all the circumstances, the judge was entitled to take the view that, when Mr Nurkowski was in discussion with Mr Boyd, that it was unlikely that he just forgot about the offer in December 1988 and that he could be satisfied that the non-disclosure to Mr Boyd was deliberate. It is not enough for Miss Newman to say that the allegation was not pleaded. It was pleaded that there was concealment of the offer from the Revenue and it must have followed from that that concealment from Mr Boyd would also be alleged.

Having reached that point the judge was faced with the question why should Mr Nurkowski have dissembled on both these matters? The judge heard all the evidence and there were many different strands in the evidence. In my judgment it was open to him to conclude that Mr Nurkowski had the plan for making the gift into settlement and hiding information from the Revenue. I accept Miss Newman’s submission that it would be unsatisfactory if the judge had merely relied on his impression of Mr Nurkowski as a witness but in my judgment there was plenty of other evidence from which he could draw the inference that he did, particularly the contemporaneous Spicer & Oppenheim attendance notes.

The judge found that the later charges and the assignment were given for the purpose of putting assets beyond the reach of the Revenue. He took the view that there was no consideration for these transactions for the purposes of section 423(1)(a). It has not been suggested that for a transaction to be “on terms that provide for… no consideration” within that paragraph the terms of the transaction must expressly provide for there to be no consideration. The claim as originally pleaded was under section 423(1)(c), i.e. that the charges were transactions at an undervalue, but in the end the respondent succeeded on section 423(1)(a).

Miss Newman submits that a transaction which grants security cannot be for no consideration because a charge does not deplete the debtor’s assets. In my judgment this argument must be rejected. Miss Newman’s argument relies on the holding of Millett J as he then was in Re M C Bacon Ltd [1990] BCLC 324 at 340c to 341d that the grant of security cannot constitute a transaction at an undervalue. It does not follow from this that a transaction involving the grant of security can never amount to a transaction for no consideration. In my judgment, it is no different from any other transaction in that respect. This in my judgment was also the view of Millett J who was careful to point out that the security in the case before him was not given without consideration because it was given in exchange for forbearance by the creditor (340f).

Clause 6 of Loan 1 provided for the grant of further security in connection with further advances. Since neither of the later charges nor the assignment was given for further advances, it cannot be said that the judge was in error in holding that this clause did not apply. Miss Newman submits that the judge should have interpreted the covenant for further security in clause 6 of Loan 1 as arising not simply when the trustees were making further advances to Mr Nurkowski but also by implication when he was in default of his covenants, for example to make repayment. The judge’s interpretation meant that the trustees were unprotected. In my judgment, although Miss Newman’s interpretation would have produced a more commercial result, it is not possible to reach that interpretation except by an impermissible rewriting of the terms of Loan 1.

The trustees also argued before the judge that they were entitled to take possession of the profits of the Three Lions and the Lion & Fiddle and that they took the later charges and assignment in lieu of enforcing such rights. However the question is then whether that argument is substantiated by the evidence and in particular whether the trustees in fact applied genuine pressure so that the later charges and the assignment can be said to have been given as consideration for their forbearance from enforcing such rights as they had. The forbearance which the trustees gave was to enable Mr Nurkowski to develop the Three Lions and the Lion & Fiddle and continued after 16 February 1998. Accordingly, on Miss Newman’s submission, forbearance was given.

Miss Newman accepts that the question whether the later charges and the assignment were for no consideration can be determined on the documentary evidence, consisting mainly of correspondence. In my judgment the facts appearing from the documents summarised above show that the trustees were asking for repayment and for further security without applying pressure. They naturally wanted their fees paid and to be put in funds to pay tax due from them. However, subject to those matters, they were in reality otherwise content to let matters roll forward. The letter from Pritchard Englefield and Tobin was a contrived and artificial attempt to demonstrate the imposition of pressure. That firm’s quick departure from the scene lends support to the argument that the trustees did not wish to apply any pressure at all. The fact that the trustees thought that the debts due to them were repayable before 16 February 1998, or that Mr Nurkowski also thought that they were in a position to enforce repayment of the sums due to them, does not mean that consideration in that form was in fact given. The test is objective and consideration was plainly not given in that circumstance. The grant of the security over Enniswood or the land at the rear was not to obtain the trustees’ consent to the release of their charge over the Three Lions so that it could be developed; this was not the reason why those charges were granted. Those charges were granted so that the trustees could have as much security as possible even though they were in no position to demand repayment or exert any pressure or give forbearance. The fact that the development of the Three Lions continued after 16 February 1998 does not mean that there was consideration for the grant of security before that date, as Miss Newman submits. It is no answer that the trustees felt that they had to apply pressure gently as Mr Nurkowski was providing a home for the beneficiary of the settlement. The truth is that the trustees were prepared to act in accordance with Mr Nurkowski’s wishes and that attitude did not significantly change when the trustees became short of money themselves. It was not the trustees who were pressing for payment of the amounts due to them. It was the Revenue.

Miss Newman submits that there was consideration for the assignment of the loan account because Lloyds Bank were seeking to increase the amount for which they had priority over Enniswood from £75,000 to £120,000. There is a reference to that proposal before the assignment is signed. However the deed of postponement was not signed until 1998 and it is not suggested in the correspondence that the trustees were only prepared to execute the deed of postponement if they were given the further security in the form of the assignment of the loan account.

In my judgment the judge was entitled to conclude that the trustees were not pressing for repayment of the sums due to them and did not give any consideration in the form of forbearance for the grant of the later charges and the assignment. Loans 1, 2, 4 and 5 were not repayable until 16 February 1998. Loan 3 was not repayable until 30 March 2013 (unless Mr Nurkowski died in the meantime). Accordingly the trustees were in no position to demand repayment at the date of the later charges or the date of the assignment. The loans were one-sided in Mr Nurkowski’s favour. The trustees were in law prospective creditors of Mr Nurkowski. However, they did not threaten to start proceedings to obtain a judgment or to bring bankruptcy proceedings against Mr Nurkowski. Moreover, the trustees were advised by Mr Boyd at most times, which makes it even more unlikely that they would apply any real pressure on Mr Nurkowski.

Accordingly in my judgment, the appeal against the judge’s findings in respect of the later charges must be dismissed.

Most of the issues of law which arise concern section 423 and therefore I start with some general observations about that section and sections 424 and 425, which are connected with it. Sections 423 to 425 are drafted in wide terms. The sections apply to transactions defrauding creditors (using the terminology in the marginal note) whether or not the person effecting the transaction has become insolvent.

The scheme of section 423 is unusual. Subs (1) defines the circumstances in which section 423 applies: there must be a transaction at an undervalue as defined. Both gifts and transactions with a gratuitous element are covered. Subs (2) defines the objects for which the court can grant relief and refers to “victims”. Subs (2) does not set out the circumstances in which the court may grant that relief. Those circumstances appear from subs (3). Subs (3) stipulates the purpose with which the transaction must have been entered into before relief can be granted. Subs (4) identifies the court which can hear a claim under section 423. Subs (5) defines a “victim” of a transaction defrauding creditors, and it is to be noted that the definition is not restricted to creditors with present or actual debts: whether a person is a victim turns on actual or potential prejudice suffered. The definition of “victim” is employed in relation to the criteria for relief in subs (2). It is not used in subs (3), which defines the necessary purpose. The person or persons who fulfil the conditions in section 423(3) may thus be a narrower class of persons than those who at the date of the transaction are victims for the purpose of section 423(5). For a person to be a “victim” there is no need to show that the person who effected the transaction intended to put assets beyond his reach or prejudice his interests. Put another way, a person may be a victim, and thus a person whose interests the court thinks fit to protect by making an order under section 423, but he may not have been the person within the purpose of the person entering into the transaction. That person may indeed have been unaware of the victim’s existence. That answers the question: what connection must there be between the purpose and the prejudice? Section 423(2) in conjunction with the definition of victim in 423(5) makes prejudice or potential prejudice a condition for obtaining relief. That prejudice does not have to be achieved by the purpose with which the transaction was entered into. Nor in my judgment does the purpose have to be one which by itself is capable of achieving prejudice. What subs (3) requires is that the purpose should be one which is to prejudice “the interests” of a claimant or prospective claimant. The “interests” of a person are wider than his rights. The expression the “interests” of a member in section 459 of the Companies Acts 1985 (right of members of a company to apply for relief against unfair prejudice) have been similarly construed: see for example Re Sam Weller & Sons Ltd [1990] Ch.682, 685. Likewise in Peter Buchanon Ltd v McVey [1955] AC 516n at 521, Kingsmill Moore J of the Supreme Court of Ireland spoke of having to consider the interests of creditors (which included in that case the tax authority in respect of a tax liability triggered by a sale of whiskey stocks), when a dividend is paid by a solvent company, even though those creditors have no right in law to stop a dividend being paid. I do not therefore consider that it is any answer to the application of section 423 in the present case that the settlement did not by itself prejudice the right of the Revenue to make an assessment of tax on the disposal of OS 160 to the settlement when it was exported to Guernsey. In my judgment, therefore, where as in this case the applicant relies on section 423(3)(b), the crucial step is to identify the interests of the person which are said to be prejudiced.

The next question is whether a person can be said to have the necessary purpose if he is completely mistaken as to whether entry into the transaction can have the effect of prejudicing a person’s interests. This question assumes a rather exceptional state of affairs where a person has the necessary purpose of putting assets beyond the reach of his creditors and wrongly thinks that if he enters into a transaction at an undervalue (e.g. gifts property to his wife) his creditor, B, will be prejudiced. If unbeknown to him his wife has agreed to pay the monies transferred to her to B, the purpose that he had in mind will not be achieved. If the creditor takes the benefit of the transaction solely for himself and refuses to share it out with other creditors, they will be persons who (arguably at least) are prejudiced by the transaction and can constitute victims within section 425(5). Another situation that might occur is where the debtor enters into a transaction knowing that his entry into that transaction, together with the happening of some other event, will prejudice a creditor. I consider that the court does not have to consider the relative causal effect of the two matters. If the transaction is entered into with the requisite purpose, the fact that some other event needs to occur does not mean that the transaction cannot itself be within section 423(3). I consider that this is what the judge meant by his test of whether the transaction was an essential part of the purpose (in which connection he applied his analogy with petrol and matches for a fire). I therefore do not accept Miss Newman’s submission that it is necessary to approach section 423 as if a test of causation were to be applied. The right approach in my judgment is to apply the statutory wording. It is enough if the transaction sought to be impugned was entered into with the requisite purpose. It is entry into the transaction, not the transaction itself, which has to have the necessary purpose.

Miss Newman seeks to test her propositions by supposing that Mr Nurkowski had entered into the transaction with the requisite purpose but had then thought the better of it with the result that there was no concealment of the £700,000 offer from the Revenue. I infer that the Revenue would in this case have gone on to make a proper assessment of the tax. It is not necessary to express a final view on the application of section 423 to this example but if that example had happened and there was no reason why Mr Nurkowski should not make the gift to the settlement, it is doubtful whether there would have been any victims for the purpose of section 423. However, the point does not arise in this case and I express no view on it.

Section 424 sets out who may apply for an order under section 423. A victim may bring proceedings under section 424 as well as (say) a trustee in bankruptcy, but any application, by whomsoever brought must be brought on behalf of all the victims of the transaction.

Section 425 sets out a non-exhaustive list of the orders that may be made under section 423. The 1986 Act does not specify any period of limitation in relation to a claim under section 423. Although section 423 has been in statute in one form or another since 1571, there is no reported case that we have seen which decides whether any period of limitation applies to claims under the section and if so what that period is. I shall have to deal with that question and a number of detailed points that arise on the interpretation of sections 423 to 425 below.

The argument on limitation has been conducted on the following basis. The questions that have been argued are:

These proceedings were begun on 4 December 2002, that is over twelve years after the settlement was executed. Therefore this action must fail unless there is no period of limitation, or the period is six or twelve years and began within the period of six or twelve years (as the case may be) ending on 4 December 2002. That would be the case if the period begins on the date of the bankruptcy order, which was 28 January 1999.

If there is a statutory period of limitation, it is either twelve years or six years. The relevant statutory provisions of the 1980 Act are as follows:

“8.

(1) An action upon a specialty shall not be brought after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the cause of action accrued.

(2)

Subsection (1) above shall not affect any action for which a shorter period of limitation is prescribed by any other provision of this Act.

9.

(1) An action to recover any sum recoverable by virtue of any enactment shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued …”

Before the judge Mr Davies submitted that the commencement of the period of limitation could be postponed under section 32 of the 1980 Act set out in para 120 below. Under that section, the commencement of a statutory limitation period can be postponed if there has been fraud, concealment or mistake. The judge did not find it necessary to reach a decision on section 32 but he observed that it raised a number of difficulties. The fraud or concealment must be the act of the defendant (as defined in section 32(1)). Here any fraud or concealment was on the face of it that of Mr Nurkowski, not the appellant trustees. Mr Davies did not develop his submissions on section 32(1) at the hearing of this appeal.

We were shown no authority which decides the limitation point. In the recent case of Law Society v Southall [2002] BPIR 336, this court proceeded on the basis that there was no applicable limitation period. (That case concerned gifts made by the debtor and it may be that the parties took the view that if there was any statutory period, its commencement would be postponed under section 32 of the 1980 Act). In the present case, the judge held that there was an applicable limitation period and considered that the claim was a specialty (915E to F). However he held that the limitation period (twelve years) ran from the date of the bankruptcy order so that the claim was brought in time.

Before I go to the authorities, attention should be drawn to the features of claims under section 423 which mean that, if such claims are subject to a statutory limitation period, there may be practical difficulties in bringing such claims. As noted above, there is no requirement that the transaction should have occurred in a specified “twilight” period before the bankruptcy. It is quite possible that it will have lain undiscovered for some time. It is one of the characteristics of transactions to which section 423 applies that they are entered into by a person when he is solvent just in case he becomes unable to pay his debts as they fall due later (as where a person is about to begin a new and risky business venture). In that situation he might well have entered into the transaction with the necessary purpose of prejudicing his creditors in those circumstances. Moreover, if the statutory limitation period runs, as Miss Newman submitted, from the date of the transaction, that period might well have expired before the appointment of the office holder who is entitled to bring a claim under section 424(1) (a) or (b) unless, of course, section 32 applies.

Under section 424(1)(c) a victim can bring an application under section 423 at any time. If he does so, he is deemed to bring the claim on behalf of every victim of the transaction (section 424(2)). If the judge is right, then there must be separate limitation periods for different applicants even though there can only be a single cause of action. On the face of it, that is anomalous. A victim who brings an application under section 423 is not enforcing a remedy for prejudice to himself alone because he, like the trustee to bankruptcy, is deemed to bring the proceedings on behalf of all the victims (section 424(2)). Moreover, once the court has made an order on an application under section 423, that must be the end of any claim by any other person under section 423 in respect of that transaction. If there is a statutory limitation period commencing on the date of the transaction, there may well be victims who only come into existence after its expiry, but it may be said that it is the inevitable consequence of any limitation period that it will give the defendant a good defence to claims brought after the expiry of the period. I would add that there is a question on which we have not heard argument as to who benefits from an order under section 423. It may not be the general body of creditors in the bankruptcy (see for example Fidelis Oditah, Legal Aspects of Receivables Financing, 1991, para 7.6).

Notwithstanding the above, it is the policy of the statute of limitations that there should be an end to litigation and that this is in the public interest. On this basis, there is no reason why claims under this section should not be subject to some time limit. A trustee in bankruptcy is always liable to find himself in a position where claims that he might have made have become statute-barred before he can take steps to enforce them. The hardship is arguably not great here because the cause of action could always have been enforced by a victim of the transaction, even before the trustee was appointed. In any event, the trustee may be able to rely on section 32(1) of the 1980 Act. Section 424(1)(a) reflects the practice under earlier legislation: see for example Re Lane-Fox [1900] QB 508. In Re Eichholz [1959] Ch 708, Harman J left open the question whether, if the proceedings were brought by a trustee in bankruptcy, a representative creditor had to be joined. It may be that the purpose of providing in section 424(1)(a) that a trustee in bankruptcy could make the application was simply to resolve this question. It would be odd if by inserting section 424(1)(a) Parliament had made a radical change to the question when time starts to run for limitation purposes. If it runs from the appointment of a trustee in bankruptcy or the appointment of a supervisor of a voluntary arrangement within section 424(1), time may start to run again many years after the transaction sought to be set aside, and indeed there may be successive bankruptcies or voluntary arrangements. It is, moreover, not clear whether a victim who makes an application with the permission of the court pursuant to section to 424(1)(a) or (b) would then be entitled to the benefit of the same limitation period.

With that introduction I turn to the first of the two questions set out in para 106 above.

In his notice of application, the trustee seeks declarations that the settlement, the later charges and the assignment were transactions defrauding creditors under the meaning of section 423 of the 1986 Act which should be set aside accordingly. The trustee also seeks an order vesting the assets of the settlements in him, but that is of little use now as nearly all the assets of the settlement have been applied in making loans to Mr Nurkowski. He also asks for further or other relief. By his respondent’s notice, the trustee in bankruptcy seeks a “compendious money judgment” (as his skeleton argument puts it) to put the Revenue into the position that it would have been in if Mr Nurkowski had himself sold both OS 149 and OS 160 to Gallagher for the sum of £2m., and an order setting aside the later charges and the assignment. The judge’s order does not set aside the settlement, and the trustee does not in his respondent’s notice contend that the order should have done so. (It may be that the range of orders mentioned in section 425 was not available under earlier legislation). While the relief sought in respect of the later charges and the assignment is clearly not to recover a sum of money (though it may lead to a consequential order for the payment of money), the order sought in respect of the gift into settlement may be such an order. In those circumstances, section 9(1) may apply: see section 9(1) and section 8(2), above. However that may be, I do not see how it can be said that, in that case, the 1980 Act provides no limitation period. Of course, the court has jurisdiction to make some form of order other than the payment of money, but it is established by earlier decisions of this court that where statute enables the court to give relief in monetary or non-monetary form the court should look to see what is actually claimed: see West Riding of Yorkshire CC v Huddersfield Corp [1957] 1 QB 540, and Re Farmizer (Products) Ltd [1997] 1 BCLC 589.

Insofar as the relief sought is not for “the recovery of a sum recoverable by virtue of” an enactment, within section 9 of the 1980 Act, I agree with the judge that this is an action for a specialty. The essence of a specialty is a covenant under seal or an obligation imposed by statute: see Collin v Duke of Westminster [1985] 1 QB 581, at 601D to 603H per Oliver LJ with whom May LJ and Sir Roger Ormrod agreed, citing in particular Lord Hanworth MR in Aylott v West Ham Corporation [1927] 1 Ch 30, 50 and Lord Atkin in Pratt v Cook, Son & Co (St Paul’s) Ltd [1940] AC 437,446. In both the cases cited the claim was to recover a sum of money under a statute. The Collin case itself concerned a claim for a declaration as to entitlement to acquire the freehold of a property under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. This court did not determine whether such a claim was a specialty but we have not been shown any authority which establishes that an obligation imposed by statute other than to pay money is not a specialty. On the contrary, section 8 seems to assume that it is as otherwise there would be little purpose in section 8 in relation to statutory obligations having regard to section 8(2) (see also Preston & Newsom, Limitation of Actions, 1989, para 8.9, page 59).

I note that the view is expressed in the Cork Report (Report of the Review Committee on Insolvency Law and Practice, 1982, Cmnd 8558) that there is no time limit in which proceedings must be brought to have a transaction set aside under section 172 of the Law of Property Act 1925 (paras 1203 and 1213), but no authority is cited for this opinion. It may be that the Cork Committee had in mind Re Maddever (1884) 27 Ch D 523 (not cited to us in argument) in which this court held that a specialty creditor who applied to set aside a conveyance as fraudulent under the statute 13 Eliz. c.5, the predecessor of section 172 of the Law of Property Act 1925, was not barred by laches and could be brought at any time before his own claim as a creditor became statute-barred. However, at this time there was no statutory limitation period for claims made pursuant to statute, other than debts (see section 3 of the Civil Procedure Act 1833). A statutory limitation period for non-monetary claims made pursuant to statute was introduced for the first time by section 2 of the Limitation Act 1939, pursuant to the recommendation of the Law Review Committee chaired by Lord Wright MR in its Fifth Interim Report (Statutes of Limitation) (Cmnd 5334,1936) (see in particular page 8 of the Report). Once there was a statutory limitation period for non-monetary claims based on a statute, that period must in my judgment apply. However it must follow from Re Maddever that a claim which is statute-barred as against the debtor cannot be the basis of a claim to set aside a fraudulent conveyance. This principle is consistent with the principle that a statute-barred debt cannot be proved in bankruptcy (see, for example, Cotterill v Price [1960] 1 WLR 1907), and accordingly I would hold that the same principle applies to claims which may result in the distribution of the benefits of a judgment under section 423.

My conclusion as to the application of a statutory limitation period is consistent with the decision of this court in the Farmizer case that a claim for a contribution to the assets of a company under section 214 of the 1986 Act in consequence of wrongful trading was subject to the limitation period in section 9(1). It is also consistent with the decision of John Randall QC sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, in Re Priory Garage (Walthamstow) Limited [2001] BPIR 144 in relation to applications to set aside transactions as at an undervalue or as voidable preferences under section 238 to 241 of the 1986 Act. As we have not heard argument on the form of relief in respect of the settlement, I would leave open the question whether section 9(1) could apply to that part of the trustee’s application in that respect.

I now turn to the question when the period begins. The argument that it begins on the appointment of the trustee where an application is made by a trustee in bankruptcy under section 424(1)(a) is that that section prevents any application being made under section 423 except by the persons mentioned in section 424(1). Thus the requirements for making an application cannot be satisfied in the case of a trustee in bankruptcy until he has been appointed. The judge accepted this argument, citing para. 182 of the judgment of Charles J in Carman v Yates. The holding of Charles J was based on an opinion expressed in Muir Hunter on Personal Insolvency and a passage in Re Priory Garage, though I agree with the judge that the passage cited is not directed to this point.

I do not consider that the judge was correct on this point. The question is one of statutory interpretation. A period of limitation runs from the date on which the ingredients of the cause of action are complete: Coburn v Colledge [1897] 1 QB 702, 706 (see also Letang v Cooper [1967] 1 QB 232 at 242 to 243). A cause of action is complete when all the facts which it would be necessary to prove, if traversed, in support of the right to a judgment of the court, can be pleaded.

It must be uncontroversial that the matters contained in section 423(1) and (3) are ingredients of the cause of action under section 423. The difficult question is whether section 424 also sets out ingredients of the cause of action. As the marginal note states, section 424 deals with the question of who can bring the application. Is this – in whole or part - purely a procedural question, or does section 424(1) set out ingredients of the cause of action?

In favour of the former view, it can be said that the appointment of the trustee is not a matter which has to be pleaded before any claim under section 423 can be pleaded. It is likely that there will be a victim prior to his appointment (if there are any victims at all). I have already observed that if the judge is right, the limitation period can begin many years after the transaction. It also means that there are separate limitation periods applying to different applicants. These considerations would tend to make it less likely that time began to run in this case for the purpose of the 1980 Act only when the trustee was appointed. Likewise, it would be very odd if a statutory limitation period began on the appointment of a trustee in bankruptcy if there were in fact no victims at that date.

It can also be said that, if the claim is brought outside a statutory period starting on the date of the conveyance, the application may be saved by section 32(1). This provides:

“(1)

Subject to subsections (3) and (4A) below, where in the case of any action for which a period of limitation is prescribed by this Act, either--

(a)

the action is based upon the fraud of the defendant; or

(b)

any fact relevant to the plaintiff’s right of action has been deliberately concealed from him by the defendant; or

(c)

the action is for relief from the consequences of a mistake;

the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud, concealment or mistake (as the case may be) or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.

References in this subsection to the defendant include reference to the defendant’s agent and to any person through whom the defendant claims and his agent.”

This section could clearly be invoked where the defendant was party to the fraud or to any deliberate concealment. Here, however, there is no basis for saying that the appellants were party to any fraud or that they have deliberately concealed any relevant facts. It is possible that the fraud of Mr Nurkowski can be treated as that of the trustees as a result of the extended meaning given in section 32(1) to references to the defendant. However we have not heard any submissions on this point and it is thus inappropriate to express a view on the application of section 32 to this case as that matter has not been fully argued.

On the other hand, if it is correct that for the purposes of limitation time begins to run from the date of the transaction, there may be no person at all at the start of the period. It would be odd if Parliament enacted a provision for victims where time started to run before the person who wanted to enforce his rights as a victim had become a victim. In the present case, for instance, the Revenue did not become a victim before Mr Nurkowski made the gift into settlement and submitted the valuation of the land for £35,000. Likewise, a person who enters into (say) a voluntary settlement of all his assets in contemplation of entering into a risky trade may remain solvent for many years. In such a case, I doubt whether a person is “capable of being prejudiced” by the settlement for the purposes of section 423(5) until the debtor becomes insolvent. Until that point in time, there may therefore be no person capable of applying for an order.

In these circumstances, in my judgment, the statutory limitation period cannot start to run until there is a victim within the statutory definition. It must be part of the cause of action that it can be shown that he is a victim. The limitation period must in my judgment then continue unless and until whichever first occurs of (a) the disposal of the possibility of any claim under section 423 by a binding judgment or settlement, or (b) the expiry of the period of limitation applicable to the section 423 claim.

The next issue is whether the period also begins when a trustee in bankruptcy is appointed. I do not consider that that is the effect of section 424 because the trustee’s application is also made on behalf of the victims. This is an indication that he is to be in no better position than the victims themselves, and thus not able to bring a claim if their claims under section 423 or against the debtor are statute-barred. On the other hand he must be in a position to make an application so long as there is any victim whose claim is not statute barred. I note that in Re Maddever, the co-applicant was the nominee under letters of administration of the insolvent estate of the deceased but the judgment of this court does not suggest that his presence had any effect on the limitation question. I accept, of course, that that case was decided before section 424 was enacted. I have put forward in para. 113 above a possible explanation for including the trustee as a person who may make an application under section 423.

The next issue is whether the limitation period begins each time a victim comes into existence. I would put my answer to this issue in this way. Section 424 establishes the collective nature of the remedy under section 423: any victim can make the application but if he does so he represents all victims. Likewise, a trustee in bankruptcy can make an application. However, if the trustee makes an application under section 423, his application is also on behalf of all victims. Section 423 is thus a collective remedy. It follows that the ingredients of the cause of action can be established by pointing to the existence of any one of the victims. It must follow logically from this that the limitation period applicable to the section 423 claim made on any particular application cannot start before the victim for the purposes of that application (ie the applicant, or, if the applicant if not himself a victim, the person(s) on whose behalf the applicant makes the application) became a victim. The period then runs from this date or, if the commencement of that period is postponed under section 32 of the 1980 Act, from that postponed date. The length of the period is governed by section 8(1) of the 1980 Act, unless section 9 of that Act applies.

In this case, the claim which the Revenue now seeks to advance in respect of the capital gains tax liability apparently settled by the compromise did not come into existence until the compromise was made in 1993. This court has not heard argument on the form of relief and therefore this court must as I see it proceed on the basis that section 8 applies. Accordingly the trustee’s claim cannot be struck out as statute barred at this stage.

There can be no doubt but that section 423(3) requires the person entering into the transaction to have a particular purpose. It is not enough that the transaction has a particular result. The question which Miss Newman raises is: what must be shown in order for the court to be able to find that a purpose has been formed?

This is different from the question considered by this court in the recent case of IRC v Hashmi [2002] 2 BCLC 489. In that case the question was whether when there was more than one purpose the proscribed purpose had to be dominant or not. This court held that it is not necessary for the proscribed purpose to be the dominant purpose; it was sufficient if it was a real substantial purpose.

Here it is said that Mr Nurkowski could not be confident that he would get any tax advantage. It was just a hope that he would save tax, rather than an intention. I would accept that there is a line to be drawn between mere hopes and settled aims. As Asquith LJ said in Cunliffe v Goodman [1950] 2 KB 237, 253, a person cannot be said to have an intention merely because he contemplates something as a possibility or if his wishes are merely a minor factor in the achievement of a particular result.

The judge did not draw a distinction between hopes and purposes. However, in my judgment the strength of his finding makes the distinction irrelevant since he found that inducing the Revenue to make a wrong assessment of the capital gains was something that Mr Nurkowski positively intended and was a factor which “substantially motivated” him (915A). This in my judgment was enough to show that Mr Nurkowski acted with what was in law a purpose.

I have already dealt with the question whether the purpose was prejudicial or had to be causative of the prejudice to the Revenue.

If I may be forgiven for saying so, this issue is a bit like the chicken and the egg. The appellants criticise the judge for not making a finding about the compromise. They say that he heard all the evidence that there was likely to be on that issue. The position as it existed before the settlement could not be restored and so court has no jurisdiction to make an order unless there was a victim as defined in section 423(5).

In my judgment there is nothing in section 423 which mandates this result. I have already observed that it is a feature of sections 423 to 425 that they are drafted in wide terms, and this is another example of their inbuilt elasticity. It is correct that normally the court would consider that it was not proportionate to hear an application unless it could be shown at that date that there was a person who could benefit by a positive finding under section 423. But there are bound to be cases where that cannot be shown, perhaps because the person who seems to have been prejudiced has to establish his claim in foreign proceedings, or because there are creditors whose claims have not yet matured into present debts. Here the Revenue has grounds for saying that they were deceived as to Mr Nurkowski’s means and as to his ability to raise loans from the settlement. There is as it seems to me a deliberate avoidance of the term “victim” in section 423(1) and (3), which set out the conditions which have to be satisfied before the court can make an order under section 425. On the contrary, all that has to be shown is that the person is making or may at some time make a claim (see section 423(3)(a) and (b)).

There is another perspective on the victim issue. The Revenue in the unusual circumstances of this case appeared to move out of the class of victims when it agreed to the compromise but to move back into the class when it resuscitated the claims thereby settled. The position is more apparent than real because it contends that it has had the right to set the compromise aside since the date of entry into the compromise. On that basis it did not move out of the class of victims when it agreed to the compromise. However I see no reason why a person cannot cease to be the person within section 423(3) but become a victim for the purposes of section 423(5) (perhaps by reason of some other indebtedness which the debtor owes to it) before the court makes its order so as to be a person whose interests may be protected by such order. Section 423 is sufficiently flexible to allow this.

The respondent initially relied on section 423(1) (c) as the basis for invoking section 423 in relation to the later charges and the assignment. The question of the application of section 423(1) ( c) to these transactions does not arise in the light of my rejection of the appeal against the judge’s finding that the trustees gave Mr Nurkowski no consideration for these transactions. It would be difficult on the judge’s findings to consider the appeal on the alternative basis of section 423(1) (c) applies because that paragraph requires a comparison to be made between the consideration provided by the parties, for which there is no factual basis which could be reviewed on appeal. Miss Newman, however, sought to argue that as a matter of law the grant of security involved no diminution in the value of Mr Nurkowski’s assets. Therefore the fact that the consideration provided by the trustees was negligible did not bring the transactions within this paragraph. As to that, I would observe that section 423(1)(c) did not refer to a diminution in assets and does not depend on the grant of proprietary rights. The grant of other rights can constitute consideration; this approach is supported by section 425 which refers to “obligations” and “benefits” as well as to property. If it had been necessary to find the grant of a proprietary right, I would provisionally not have accepted the argument that the grant of security in this case did not involve the disposition of any property right in favour of the trustees. Obviously there is no change in the physical assets of the debtor when the security is given but there seems to be no reason why the value of the right to have recourse to the security and to take priority over other creditors, which the debtor creates by granting the security, should be left out of account. In the circumstances, I would respectfully doubt whether the holding in MC Bacon on which Miss Newman relied could apply to the later charges, which were in fact charges by way of legal mortgage, especially in the light of what was said by Lord Hoffmann and Lord Millett in Buchler v Talbot [2004] 2 AC 298 at [29] and [51] respectively. I would have the same doubts in relation to the assignment, under which (even though section 136 of the Law of Property Act 1925 was not satisfied) title to the debt was transferred to the trustees. The holding in MC Bacon was applied by this court in National Bank of Kuwait v Menzies [1994] 2 BCLC 306, where a further assignment was made of a debt that had already been assigned by way of charge, and if this point had to be decided we would have to consider whether that case was distinguishable or was now binding on this point in the light of the Buchler case. However it is not necessary for me to express a final view on these points on this appeal.

For the reasons given above I would dismiss this appeal as respects the issues so far argued, and stand over the remaining issues in the appeal and on respondent’s notice to a further hearing.

I have had the opportunity of reading in draft the judgment of Lady Justice Arden. I agree with her conclusions on all the questions we have to decide except the limitation issue (paras 106 to 129).

On that issue the first question is whether there is a period of limitation at all. It is not clear why in Law Society v Southall [2002] BPIR 336 the parties, and thus this court, proceeded on the basis that there was no period of limitation applicable to the claim under section 423 of the 1986 Act. What is clear is that the point was not argued, so that the decision is of no assistance in the present case.

Those who may apply for an order under section 423 are specified in section 424(1). They include, in para (a):

“in a case where the debtor has been adjudged bankrupt ……. the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate ……. or (with the leave of the court) …. a victim of the transaction. ”

In the present case the action is brought by a trustee in bankruptcy and there is at least one victim of the transaction in the shape of the Inland Revenue.

There is no general rule that an action brought by a trustee in bankruptcy is not subject to the provisions of the Limitation Act 1980, and I can see no justification for there to be an exception in the case of a claim brought under s.423. That is confirmed by such authority as may be said to bear on the point; see in particular Re Priory Garage (Walthamstow) Ltd [2001] BPIR 144, a case relating to the somewhat comparable provisions of section 238 to 241 of the 1986 Act.

The second question is whether the claims of the trustee in bankruptcy fall within section 8(1) or section 9(1) of the Limitation Act 1980. My own view, like that of Judge Weeks QC (pp 915-916), is that, since the main claim was in origin and substance a claim to set aside the settlement, the action as a whole was “an action upon a specialty” within section 8(1). But because the action was commenced on 4 December 2002, more than twelve years after the settlement was made on 10 March 1989 and less than six years after the bankruptcy order was made on 28 January 1999, the question whether the applicable period of limitation was twelve years under section 8(1) or six years under section 9(1) is academic.

So the third and decisive question is whether the period started on the date of the settlement, in which case the action is barred, or on 28 January 1999, in which case it was brought in due time. Following the view expressed by Charles J in para 182 of his judgment in Re Yates (A Bankrupt) [2004] All ER (D) 373, Judge Weeks held that the cause of action could not have accrued before the bankruptcy order was made. Charles J said:

“If there is a limitation period, the passages in Muir Hunter suggest that in the case of a claim by a trustee in bankruptcy begins to run from the date of the bankruptcy order. Counsel for the trustee made the same submission on the basis that that is the date when the cause of action accrued to the trustee. I agree……”

The principal objection to that view is that, because section 424(2) provides that an application made under any of the paragraphs of sub-section (1) is to be treated as made on behalf of every victim of the transaction there can only be a single cause of action, while if the view expressed by Charles J and Judge Weeks is right, there must be separate limitation periods for different applicants under section 423.

In my respectful view the premise of this objection is incorrect. It may be difficult to know exactly what Parliament did or did not have in mind in enacting section 424(2), but it seems that its main purpose must have been to ensure that a victim who had not applied under section 423 should gain the same advantage as one who had.

In any event, I do not think it is right to say that the effect of section 424(2) is that there can only be a single cause of action in respect of one transaction. In Letang v Cooper [1965] 1 QB 232, 242, Diplock LJ said:

“A cause of action is simply a factual situation the existence of which entitles one person to obtain from the court a remedy against another person.”

That shows that the identity of the claimant or applicant is an ingredient of the cause of action and because two different persons may have the same or a similar cause of action it does not follow that there is only a single cause of action.

Further, I see no inherent objection to the notion that there may be separate limitation periods for different applicants under section 423. While it has always been the policy of the Limitation Acts to put an end to stale claims, it has not been part of their policy to provide that time shall run against a claimant or applicant before he has been able to commence his action; see in particular section 28 of the 1980 Act (disability).

Three further points must be made. First, it is not an objection to the judge’s view that the limitation period may begin many years after the transaction. That state of affairs is perfectly capable of arising under other sections of the 1980 Act, e.g. sections 28 and 32. Secondly, I do not agree that the appointment of the trustee in bankruptcy is not an ingredient of the cause of action vested in the trustee. It is not until a bankruptcy order is made that the trustee is identified as the person entitled to sue. Thirdly, it is in my view immaterial that when the bankruptcy order is made there may be other victims of the transaction whose individual claims may already be statute-barred but who may nevertheless be able to claim as creditors in the bankruptcy.

For these reasons, differing from Lady Justice Arden, I have come to the conclusion that the judge’s view of the limitation issue was correct. Like him, I would decide it in favour of the trustee in bankruptcy and dismiss the appeal accordingly.

I too agree with conclusions reached by Lady Justice Arden on all questions we have to decide except the limitation issue. On that issue I agree with the judgment of Sir Martin Nourse, and am fully persuaded by his reasoning that the judge’s conclusion on this issue was correct.

It follows that the appeal on the issues which were before us will be dismissed and (for the avoidance of doubt) further argument on relief will not include argument on the limitation issue.