Knowing Receipt and "Equitable Proprietary Rights": Byers v Saudi National Bank

Abstract

In Byers v Saudi National Bank, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom delivered judgment in perhaps the last episode in the Akers v Samba saga. While the conclusion might be sound, the path to the conclusion is questionable. The reasoning proves too much, and there is a danger that some labels-particularly of "equitable proprietary claims" - might lead unsuspecting counsel into error in later cases. What emerges from Byers is a view of knowing receipt as contingent on the equity to obtain specific restitution of an asset - a conclusion which could have more readily been reached through the construction of the statute at hand, and which sits ill with the Australian preference to see knowing receipt as fault-based, rather than as a vindication of pre-existing "property rights" and without sufficient interrogation of what we mean by "trust property" for the purposes of Barnes v Addy liability.