The Supreme Court will take up two very different cases this week.
In The Father v Worcestershire County Council, to be heard on 15 October 2024, a panel of Lord Reed, Lord Sales, Lord Leggatt, Lord Stephens, and Lady Simler will consider whether a father’s application for a writ of habeas corpus in respect of his two children should be granted. The children were placed in the care of the respondent council under a Children Act 1989 order. The Father applied for habeas corpus writ, which the High Court denied. On appeal, the Court of Appeal set aside the High Court’s ruling on procedural grounds, but dismissed the application on the merits, finding that the father’s argument that section 31(2) of the Act had not been satisfied is a challenge to factual findings that can only be brought by the statutory appeal routes, and that a habeas writ has no application to a child subject to a care order.
Two days are set aside for the hearing in LA Micro Group Inc v LA Micro Group (UK) Ltd and Frenkel v LA Micro Group (UK) Ltd before Lord Hodge, Lord Briggs, Lord Sales, Lord Burrows, and Lord Richards on 16 and 17 October 2024. Two individuals, Bell and Lyampert, are registered shareholders of one share each in a UK company. They held the shares on trust for Bell and a California company owned by Lyampert and another individual, Frenkel. Later, When Lyampert and Frenkel fell out, Frenkel allegedly disavowed any interest in the UK company, and Bell and Lyampert agreed to split the profits of the UK company 50/50, in line with their respective registered shareholdings.
The US company and Frenkel later insisted that the US company’s beneficial interest in the shares, and the profits, remained. The arguments of both sides have narrowed as the case ping-ponged between the High Court and the Court of Appeal, so the sole issue at the Supreme Court is whether the US company’s beneficial interest was contractually surrendered even if not made in writing. Section 53(1)(c) of the Law of Property Act 1925 provides that a transfer of an equitable interest or trust must be in writing and signed by the transferor or his agent, but section 53(2) says that the section “does not affect the creation or operation of resulting, implied or constructive trusts”. The Court of Appeal found that the California company’s surrender of its interest fell within the exception, because the agreement was specifically enforceable and so gave rise to a constructive trust in favour of the intended transferee. Trusts lawyers will no doubt be interested in the approach ultimately taken by the Supreme Court.
