Equity—Fiduciary duty—Duty not to profit from position of trust

Court of Appeal, Civil Division

Waller, Tuckey and Jacob LJJ

4 April 2007

An agent’s duty of disclosure requires him to disclose to his principal the amount of the commission he was to receive from the other party in the case where the borrowers for whom the agent is acting are in the non-status lending market, and therefore likely to be vulnerable and unsophisticated.

Thomas Seymour (instructed by Butcher Burns) for the claimant.
Bradley Say (instructed by Heer Manak) for the defendants.
By early 2003, the defendants were in arrears under their mortgage with a building society. They applied for a loan of £8,000 to the claimant through a local broker, D.

The loan was to pay off the arrears on the first mortgage, to pay the broker’s arrangement fee of £1,000, and to provide some surplus liquid funds for the defendants’ own use. Upon receipt of their loan application from the broker, the claimant