Cause & effect

Arecent Court of Appeal decision may make it harder for defendant professionals to establish a causation defence in a narrow class of cases. On 11 May the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in Levicom International Holdings BV and another v Linklaters [2010] EWCA Civ 494, [2010] All ER (D) 81 (May). It ruled that where a firm advises its client to pursue litigation, rather than settle, and the client does so, the normal inference is that the client acted on that advice. The burden shifts to the firm to prove that the client would have gone ahead whatever the advice and that their advice did not therefore cause the loss to the client. After this ruling, defendants in professional negligence claims will need some evidence to establish that a client would have proceeded, even if their advice had been different. Linklaters had advised the claimants, two companies in the Levicom group (Levicom), on a dispute they had with two Swedish companies. Levicom alleged