No duty of care

Hockin and others v Masden and another [2014] EWHC 763 (Ch), [2014] All ER (D) 206 (Mar) NLJ 218 March

It was well established that a bank negotiating a transaction with another party “owes in the first instance no duty of care to explain the nature or effect of the proposed arrangement to that other party”: Bankers Trust International plc v Sejahtera [1996] CLC 518 at 533. Mance J went on to qualify the general proposition by saying that if a bank does give an explanation or tender advice, it owes a duty to do so fully, accurately and properly. No doubt too a bank might on particular facts be held to have assumed a general advisory role in respect of the transaction.